An Irishman's record-breaking attempt to climb Mount Everest without oxygen was thwarted at the last minute due to bad weather.
James McManus, 39, from Roscrea, Co Tipperary, hoped to become the first ever Irish person to summit the world's highest peak with no supplementary oxygen.
He had reached Camp 2 base camp at 6,400m on Monday and had planned to make the final climb to reach the summit on Tuesday.
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But instead there was heartbreak after he was forced to call off the attempt the day before due to high winds in the Himalayas which would have made the expedition extremely dangerous.
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Climbing season on Mount Everest finishes on May 29, which means that James will have to abandon the attempt altogether.
Posting a video from base camp to his adventure travel company's Instagram page, Earth's Edge, James revealed he was "gutted" they couldn't attempt the climb and was "fighting back the tears" at the disappointment.
He said: "Unfortunately, because of consistently high winds between now and the end of the season, we are not going to get a chance to attempt the summit, which is really disappointing.
"But these things happen, and there's nothing I can really do about it. It was always going to be one of the things that could affect my expedition - the weather - and when you try to climb Everest without oxygen you just need perfect conditions, and they're not perfect.
"The winds are really, really high so we just had to make a call and today we came back down."
Since abandoning the attempt, James was taken to a hospital in Kathmandu on Tuesday with a "mild case of pulmonary oedema and potentially a cerebral oedema", which is caused by excess fluid in the lungs and brain.
However, on Wednesday he revealed he was "doing much better" and is "looking forward to getting home" to Ireland.
Oxygen levels at the peak of Everest are extremely low, about 30% of what they are at sea level and James had already spent almost 50 days in Nepal acclimatising to the conditions as he prepared for the climb.
Only 216 climbers have ever completed the gruelling feat - of reaching Everest's summit without oxygen - since it was first achieved in 1978 and James would have been the first ever Irish person to do so.
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