I hear you’re going climbing another wee mountain,” is local photographer Clive Wasson’s way of greeting Jason Black.

“Aye,” replies Jason.

“Errigal is it?” Clive offers with a smile.

We all laugh, because each of us knows the mountain to which he is referring is most definitely not Mount Errigal, Donegal’s highest peak.

He is alluding to K2, the world’s second highest mountain but considered the most difficult and one of the deadliest in the world to climb. One in four people die while attempting K2 and having failed to summit it in 2015, Jason is preparing to tackle the mountain again this summer.

Jason is a full-time mountaineer and global endurance athlete from Co Donegal. He has climbed Mount Everest, completed five of the Seven Summits, currently holds the world mountaineering record for speed climbing Kilimanjaro (twice in just over 22 hours) and won last year’s 1,100km Race Around Ireland cycle, to name but a few achievements.

However, despite the 46-year-old’s mammoth accomplishments, upon meeting him at Alcorn’s Flower & Garden Centre just outside Letterkenny town, the most striking thing about him is that he is a very humble and relaxed person. He knows most people who pass and salutes them warmly by name. When ordering a sandwich, he tells the lady behind the counter to put whatever on it, “you know me Michelle, I don’t mind”.

Initially, Irish Country Living finds it difficult to understand why such a level-headed husband and father-of-four would willingly face such danger, but then as Jason begins to tell his story the pieces fall into place.

Bullying

During his childhood years, Jason happily attended a rural primary school outside Letterkenny and was excited about the transition to secondary school. Unfortunately, his teenage years were to be marred by incessant bullying.

“I went to secondary school and for me that’s where it fell apart, because I fell to the hands of a bully for six years who destroyed me,” says Jason of the situation. “I left school after six years with no Junior Cert or Leaving Cert, I had no qualifications at all to my name. Every day for six years I was at the hands of a very violent bully, physically and mentally.

“One of the things that I didn’t do and I’m sorry I didn’t do it, is reach out. I didn’t ask for help. I bottled it up myself for the six years. Even eating the breakfast in the morning, the hairs were standing on the back of my neck, knowing what was going to happen at nine o’clock in the morning, every day.

“Those demons are still inside, they don’t ever go away. These are scars that possibly nobody ever sees because they’re not visible scars, they’re internal.”

Leaving school at 17, Jason began to work in retail. His father was a motor mechanic and his mother a housewife. They were what he describes as a very normal, happy family, typical of the time. Tragically, he lost his mother to breast cancer shortly after finishing secondary school.

“That kind of sent me spinning again. In Donegal the mum was the glue of the family, an Irish mammy was critical to the homestead and it was really like cutting off my left arm. I was scrambling to hold on to sense and I was the oldest in the house. Back then at 17/18, it wasn’t like a 17/18-year-old today. I didn’t have the skillset to handle it. Mentally I wasn’t strong enough to deal with it,” explains Jason. These teenage years were to be some of Jason’s darkest days, but having been immersed in the great outdoors from a young age, Jason found solace in nature. He climbed, ran, swam, cycled and kayaked his way through the bad times, often going into the mountains by himself for days at a time.

“As a young boy, I didn’t have the services of Jigsaw like there is today for mental health. The great outdoors became my therapy. Subconsciously, I didn’t realise it, while I was in the mountains the therapy was taking place. The therapist was Mother Nature, which is still the same today.”

From this, Jason got stronger and fitter. He went from summiting mountains in Ireland and Scotland to mainland Europe and on to some of the highest peaks in the world.

“Sometimes events in life can be tragic and you will be left with two choices; you can either turn them into a very negative story, that will take you down a very dark road, or turn them into something incredible, that will make you into an incredible human being,” reflects Jason

Ambition

Meeting Dawson Stelfox, the first Irish man to ascend Everest, was a turning point for Jason. This encounter fuelled his ambition to take on the world’s tallest mountain. After eight years of training, on 19 May 2013 Jason became the first Donegal man to summit Everest, having taken the more challenging south-facing route through Tibet.

In 2015 Jason attempted K2, but was unsuccessful after an avalanche wiped out all of their expedition equipment. No one reached the summit of K2 that year. I ask was he scared while climbing the mountain? He says fear is the wrong association, that you are very mindful of where you are.

On 18 June this year, Jason will leave Letterkenny, the plan being to return two months later having successfully summited K2. This time around, however, he will have something a little extra: climbing gear belonging to Ger McDonnell. Ger was the first Irish man to climb K2, but sadly died during the descent.

“Myself and Sharon, my wife, went down to west Limerick to Ger’s family home. They are such beautiful, warm, humble people. Honest and very ordinary, yet they had this very extra ordinary individual within their home. They took me into Ger’s room where all of his climbing equipment was, so I’m getting the opportunity to climb K2 this year with some of Ger’s equipment, which means a lot to me.”

In the meantime, Jason is training six hours a day, six days a week, in an altitude tent in his backyard, as well as sleeping in the tent too. He will also have a little warm-up this weekend on the first mountain he ever climbed, Mount Errigal, as he is an ambassador for the Red Cross Sunrise Summit Challenge that takes place this Saturday. The Sunrise Summit is a nighttime hike, where participants take on one of Ireland’s most challenging peaks with the aim of reaching the summit in time to watch the sunrise.

A helping hand

As passionate as Jason is about climbing mountains, there is something that trumps even that – helping others, particularly young people who, like himself, were bullied and had a difficult time in school. Jason regularly speaks in schools.

“I have become very mindful that the greatest summit I’m standing on is in classrooms, it’s not mountains. The mountains only afford me the opportunity to get to the classrooms, to stand in front of a classroom and to be able to tell your story as a human being is so powerful,” he says.

“While I only have to climb a mountain for two months and it’s very tough, people are climbing bigger mountains every day; depression, disability and issues that are going on in everyday life. I’m very, very aware of that and I feel empowered to reach out, certainly to young people, to tell them not to be afraid of living.

“For me, going into the ground, whenever that is, I would like to be remembered for that and not by the climbs that I have done, not by my accomplishments, because they are personal, not by my bank balance or the car I drive or the clothes I wear, purely by, ‘did I make a difference?’”

With all that said and the puzzle put together, Irish Country Living has a better understanding of Jason and the only question left to ask is does his family worry about him?

“Of course they do. They don’t say anything, but of course they do. This one is big, K2 is huge, but they support me. As a family we have this bond, that if I get to a point where it’s not making sense, I will turn around. They can trust me on that. For me, the greatest summit is getting home, that is success. Success isn’t getting to the top, success is getting back to Letterkenny.”

The Red Cross Sunrise Summit takes places on Carrauntoohill, Lugnaquilla, Djouce, Galtymore, Mweelrea and Errigal this Saturday 26 May. For more information, visit www.redcross.ie/sunrisesummit or contact Louise on 01-642-4616. CL