By Park Si-soo
Staff reporter
INCHEON ― Climber Oh Eun-sun returned home Tuesday, after completing her mission to become the first woman to scale the world's 14 highest peaks.
Oh, 44, wearing an orange jacket and a garland around her neck, raised her hands and flashed a big smile while standing before reporters and thanked people for all their support.
"I really appreciate the tremendous encouragement I received. I will look for ways to return all the thoughtful generosity," Oh said at a media briefing in the press center on the second floor of the passenger terminal at Incheon International Airport.
Asked to describe the moment of standing on top of Annapurna on April 27, Oh smiled and said, "It was like I gained the entire world."
Her ascent of 8,091-meter Annapurna was a tremendous accomplishment and had much media attention.
"At one point, I wanted to give up as it was so hard," she said. "About five meters before the summit, I tied the Korean national flag to a metallic pole. Then I found myself burning with fresh energy. The feeling I had at the top was so thrilling," she said.
Oh attempted to steer clear of the dispute surrounding her ascent of Kanchenjunga last year, raised by her Spanish rival Edurne Pasaban and some other climbers.
"I have the proof, video footage, and that was resolved," she said.
Oh said she explained her ascent of the peak to Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner, the first man to achieve the 14-peak record in 1986, when she met him at a base camp of Annapurna.
"I explained to him about my climb to a point named Nail Rock 8,450 meters up Kanchenjunga, drawing a picture. And he told me, 'I don't have to listen any more. I trust you 120 percent,"' Oh said. "It was a meaningful meeting."
She expressed her gratitude to her rivals Pasaban and Austria's Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, saying "They motivated me. I'm really thankful for the presence of rivals."
Asked whether she intends to meet the two if a tripartite meeting is necessary to dissipate disputes, she said she was "willing to do so."
She claimed the feat almost 13 years after successfully climbing her first mountain, the 8,035-meter Gasherbrum II in July 1997.
On allegations that her team "ignored" an emergency rescue call from a troubled Spanish team on her way down after reaching the top of Annapurna, she said her team members were so exhausted that they couldn't make it. A Spanish climber died in the accident.
"We tried to help them with all the resources we had, but it was useless," she said. "All of my team members including myself were exhausted at that time. The troubled climber was at a point that may have taken six or seven hours to get to. Sherpas are not iron men."
On criticism from Hans Kammerlander, a professional mountain climber and author who cast doubt on her achievement and called her "a flash in the pan" in an interview with Der Spiegel, a German weekly magazine, she said misunderstanding is the main cause.
In the interview with the magazine, Kammerlander belittled Oh, saying, "She was taken to the top (of Annapurna) by her team. In my eyes, it's no longer mountain climbing if you use an oxygen mask. It's as if someone used a motorcycle in the Tour de France."
"The report was largely based on his misunderstanding about me," Oh said.