Sotheby's dealer tries to conquer the Everest

London, May 19 : After a failed attempt, Andre Zlattinger, head of Scottish pictures at auction house Sotheby's, is attempting to conquer the Everest in a bid to raise funds for the hospital where his mother was treated for cancer before her death.

A father of two, Zlattinger is on the edge of Everest's "death zone", preparing to surmount the mountain's summit, reports the Scotsman.

In an earlier attempt to reach the mountaintop in 2006, Zlattinger had turned back after witnessing "a number of deaths and accidents".

But now he has reached on the edge of mountain's 'death zone' above 8,000m where the air is starved of oxygen and most of the fatalities occur.

In an email to the Scotsman the 35-year-old said, "I had no regrets at the time about my decision to turn back in 2006, but in the back of my mind I wanted to return to Everest to have a further attempt under my terms."

He's a regular visitor to the Highlands and Islands, and has also climbed in the Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas.

The senior director in the British paintings department at Sotheby's had first tried to climb Everest's North Ridge, when his mother was starting treatment for pancreatic cancer. She died last May, at the age of 62.

Zlattinger is now raising money for the Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign, at the London hospital where she was treated.

"She had always known I wanted to try and climb Everest and encouraged me to go," he wrote on his website.

"She had no regrets in life and this has encouraged me to have a further attempt on the mountain.

"I am, like most of the team, excited about the summit push but also apprehensive about the final day as for all of us it is the unknown when in the death zone," he added.

ANI