Sri Lankan mountaineer recalls Everest summit as he prepares final Seven Summits ascent

New Delhi: Johann Peries became the first Sri Lankan man to stand on the summit of Mount Everest on 22 May 2018. Years later, the memory of that day still defines the way he talks about every other mountain he has climbed and every challenge he has asked young people to face.

Speaking to WION's Sidhant Sibal during his ongoing India visit, where he has come to collect a visa for Aconcagua in Argentina, the last of the Seven Summits, Peries describes the Everest summit as a moment that is still difficult to put into ordinary language. “It was very, very emotional and proud,” he says. “I was the highest person on the Earth, and I was looking down at the Earth… taking my flag out and holding it up there really brought in all my emotions and really made it feel very proud to be Sri Lankan.”

The route that led there had already tested him. In 2016, he turned back only 400 metres short of the summit after a malfunction in his oxygen system. When he returned two years later, the mountain imposed a different kind of pressure once he passed a certain height. “You’ll start seeing dead bodies all over,” he says. “That really plays with your mind.” There were places, he adds, where he sat down and asked himself what he was doing there and whether it was worth it.

Everest was not an isolated ambition. The habit of going into the hills began with his father on Sri Lanka’s Knuckles range. Because the island has no high mountains of its own, every higher peak became a deliberate test. “I wanted to challenge myself… to see whether it was possible for us being from an island,” he said. That sequence has since taken him to Island Peak, Kilimanjaro, Mont Blanc, Kosciuszko, Elbrus and, in 2026, Denali on his third attempt. On Denali, unlike Everest, climbers must carry everything themselves, loads of about 50 kilos, with no extensive support.

In India, he spoke to schoolchildren at the Sri Lankan High Commission. The advice he gives them is drawn directly from the pauses on Everest and the returns that followed. “We all have our mountains in our lives,” he says. “Sometimes we fall down. So, my message is, however many times you fall down, if your mind is strong, if you have the determination and will, you will be able to stand up and keep going. Don’t stop, just keep going.”