The Maltese trio forming the Challenge 8000 team who reached the summit of Mount Everest last Thursday are finding the return to Malta as challenging as the climb up the highest mountain in the world.

The team originally planned to take a flight back to Malta on 4 June, explained Jo Cremona, wife of climber Marco Cremona. Since the expedition finished earlier, they are now trying to get back to the Maltese Islands before planned. However, all flights from Kathmandu are fully-booked.

“The challenge continues as bad weather has hit the lower reaches of Everest. The Challenge 8000 team have been pushing ahead, trekking long hours to try and make it to Lukla and then to Kathmandu before the storms close in,” said Mrs Cremona.

The trio formed by Mr Cremona, Robert Gatt and Greg Attard are planning to return to Malta alongside their expedition guide and experienced mountaineer Victor Saunders. They will address a press conference once home safe and sound, explained Mrs Cremona who is continuously in touch with the Maltese mountaineers to help them book the flights back home as soon as possible.

The team reached the Everest climax, and returned to Everest base camp six days ago, descending some 3,500 metres. During the descent, Dr Attard who is a medical doctor by profession, was involved in a rescue operation of the youngest English girl who ever reached the top of Mount Everest. The news of the rescue made it into English newspaper headlines over the weekend.

In the mean time, Challenge 8000’s website www.challenge8000.net was clogged with traffic as general interest in the expedition grew in the past few days. All the website bandwidth made available by the web hosting company was used up leading to the suspension of the website for a few days.