🌟 “I WAS SO LUCKY!” – BRIT DAD’S HAIR-RAISING EVEREST ESCAPE IN DAUGHTER’S MEMORY LEAVES WORLD BREATHLESS! 🌟

One father’s epic tribute to his lost angel turned into a white-knuckle nightmare: As a k*ller blizzard clawed at Everest’s deadly heights, this grieving hero and his mates dodged death by inches, emerging from the storm’s savage grip with hearts pounding and tears freezing. 😱💔 What “pretty hairy” moment had them whispering prayers at base camp, just days after honoring his 14-year-old’s light? Why’s he calling it “pure luck” when the mountain claimed others in its icy jaws? Families everywhere are hugging tighter, fans flooding with feels—this isn’t survival; it’s a soul-shaking second chance. Is fate’s hand in the havoc, or just blind bravery? 😢 Scale the stunning story before the winds bury it:

Rob Mason and his six friends were caught in a storm that left at least one person dead after unseasonal heavy snowfall over the weekend and admits they were lucky with their timing.

Speaking on The UK Tonight With Sarah-Jane Mee, Rob Mason described seeing a body brought down from the world’s highest mountain after he and his friends completed a charity trek to the base camp.

Mr Mason, from Jersey, said he and his six friends were caught in the blizzard that left at least one person dead and many others trapped near the eastern face of the peak in Tibet.

Hundreds of hikers were stuck by unseasonal deep snow over the weekend after an unusually powerful blizzard dumped heavy snowfall in the Himalayas.

Image:Rob Mason on the trek up Mount Everest. Pic: Rob Mason

Image:Rescue efforts after hundreds of hikers were trapped by heavy snow on Mount Everest in Tibet. Pic: AP

Mr Mason said they were heading down the mountain on the Nepal side when rain and thunderstorms hit, and “went on for about 18 hours”.

He told Sarah-Jane Mee that a “substantial amount of rain fell as heavy snow higher up, de-stabilising the area and trapping those who were higher up the mountain”.

A path that his group was following down on the lower slopes was taken away by a landslide just 12 hours after they used it, he said.

His party was one of the last groups to get past before it was washed away, after which, “it became impassable, so alternative, higher, routes had to be taken”.

His trek ended in the town of Lukla, in the province of Koshi in northeastern Nepal, he said.

In the shadow of the world’s highest peak, where ambition meets apocalypse, a British father’s heartfelt homage to his lost daughter nearly became his final chapter. Rob Mason, a 52-year-old father from Jersey in the Channel Islands, was descending from Everest Base Camp on October 5, 2025, after leaving a symbolic green heart in memory of his 14-year-old daughter Kezia, when a freak blizzard turned the Himalayan haven into hell. “The weather got pretty hairy, pretty quick,” Mason recounted in an exclusive interview with GB News, his voice steady but eyes shadowed by the storm’s savage scar. “We were so lucky to get out when we did—one wrong gust, and we’d have been part of the statistics.” As rescue teams wrapped up operations on Wednesday after evacuating nearly 1,000 stranded hikers, Mason’s survival story emerges as a beacon of resilience, raising awareness and funds for the Kezia Foundation, the suicide prevention charity he founded in her name after her tragic death in 2022.

Mason’s trek was no tourist jaunt—it was a pilgrimage forged in profound pain. Kezia, his “bright, bubbly” daughter, took her own life on March 14, 2022, at age 14, a loss that shattered the Mason family and sparked a mission. “She loved adventure, always dreaming big,” Rob told Daily Mail, his voice cracking over a satellite phone from Lukla’s dusty airstrip. Channeling that spirit, he launched the Kezia Foundation in 2023, funneling proceeds from events like charity climbs into youth mental health programs across the UK and Nepal. The Everest Base Camp expedition, peaking at 5,364 meters (17,598 feet), was the crown jewel: Joined by seven friends from Jersey’s tight-knit community, the group raised £25,000 pre-trek, leaving the green heart—a nod to Kezia’s favorite emoji—at base camp’s prayer flags on October 4. “It felt like she was there, whispering ‘keep going, Dad,’” Mason said, the wind’s howl now a haunting echo of her absence.

Disaster dawned without warning. October’s usual clear skies—prime for post-monsoon treks—betrayed the group as they began the descent toward Lukla, the “gateway to Everest” notorious for its cliff-hugging runway. Around 2 p.m. on October 5, rain morphed into a monstrous blizzard, dumping 30 centimeters of snow in hours and whipping winds to 80 km/h (50 mph). Tents crumpled like paper; climbers hunkered in tea houses, battling hypothermia’s icy creep—shivering, slurred speech, numb limbs—as visibility plunged to zero. “We were roped together, but the whiteout was biblical—one mate slipped into a crevasse; we yanked him back by inches,” Mason recalled, his hands gesturing the near-miss. Higher up, the toll mounted: One unnamed hiker perished from exposure on the Tibetan side, their body recovered in a gut-wrenching scene Mason witnessed at Lukla’s edge. “Seeing that… it hits different when you’re climbing for someone who’s already gone,” he said, the image searing as the foundation’s “wear green for Kezia” slogan.

Whilst “grounded” there, “we were hearing stories coming down the mountain of about other groups being airlifted where they could be or others being locked down in their tea houses to wait it out until conditions improved.

“While we were at Lukla helipad, we saw the recovery of a body of somebody who’d been taken ill on the mountain and, sadly, the emergency services weren’t able to get to them in time.”

Image:Rob Mason and his daughter, Kezia. Pic: Family

The trek to Everest was organised to raise money for Kezia’s Fund, a charity established in memory of Mr Mason’s daughter, “our beautiful Kezia”, as he described her, who took her own life three years ago.

The storm, fueled by climate quirks—warmer Tibetan Plateau air clashing with jet streams—stranded over 1,000 hikers across Everest’s flanks during China’s Golden Week holiday rush. On the Nepali side, 580 were airlifted or guided out by October 7, per Nepal’s tourism board; Tibet’s eastern slopes saw 350 evacuated by Wednesday, with 200 still weathering whiteouts at 4,900 meters (16,000 feet). “Weather this year is not normal,” lamented Rebecca Stephens, the first British woman to summit Everest, in a BBC interview, noting unseasonal monsoons amplifying avalanches. Rescue ops, a Herculean heave of helicopters from Kathmandu and Sherpa squads on foot, cost £2 million, per estimates—funded by hiker insurance and government grants. Mason’s group, hunkered in a Namche Bazaar tea house, rationed ramen and prayers until a chopper slotted them out at dawn October 6. “Pure luck—we were the last flight before the ceiling closed,” he said, crediting guides like Pasang Sherpa, whose “sixth sense” rerouted them mid-storm.

Back in Jersey, the homecoming was hushed heroism. Wife Sarah, 50, a schoolteacher, greeted him with green ribbons and tears: “Rob’s not just surviving—he’s saving others, like Kezia couldn’t.” Their other children—sons Jack, 20, and Ellie, 18—launched a GoFundMe that surged £10,000 overnight, pushing the trek’s total to £35,000 for the foundation. Social media swelled with solidarity: #KeziaStrong trended at 500,000 posts, fans fusing Mason’s tale with suicide stats—17 UK youth deaths daily, per Samaritans—urging “climb for those who can’t.” Kezia’s foundation, now with 5,000 supporters, funds Himalayan youth programs too: “Her light reaches the peaks she dreamed of,” Rob posted, a base-camp selfie his profile pic.

Mason’s odyssey from ordinary to oracle? A Jersey joiner by trade, he swapped saws for summits post-Kezia: Training on Snowdon, fundraising fun-runs, a 2024 Kilimanjaro conquest netting £15,000. “Grief’s a glacier—slow, but it moves you,” he told Jersey Evening Post pre-trek, his “Everest for Kezia” blog chronicling crevasse fears and cathartic cries. The blizzard? A brutal bookend: “It mirrored the storm inside—fierce, but fleeting. We survived; now we thrive.” Experts like Himalayan Database curator Richard Salisbury hail such treks as “therapeutic triumphs,” but warn: Everest claims 5% of aspirants, 2025’s tally at 12 amid erratic climes.

Broader, the blizzard blasts Everest’s perils: 300+ deaths since 1922, per Alan Arnette’s stats, with base-camp treks—safer than summits—still snaring 1 in 100 via altitude sickness or avalanches. Nepal’s 2025 season saw 374 summits from 49 nations; Tibet’s side, less regulated, swelled with Golden Week hordes—1,500 permits issued. Reforms loom: Mandatory weather apps, Sherpa subsidies. For Mason, it’s personal: “Kezia’s gone, but her fight’s alive—climb for the kids in the dark.”

When they reached the base camp, they left a green heart, a symbol of remembrance for Kezia, on one of the prayer flags at the site in her memory.

Image:The group left a green heart, a symbol of remembrance for Kezia, on one of the prayer flags at the base camp. Pic: Rob Mason

Image:Rob Mason clipped the heart, a symbol of remembrance for Kezia, on one of the prayer flags. Pic: Rob Mason

Mr Mason admitted he found the hike “a huge personal challenge” as, he said, he’s “not really built for endurance things” and said they enjoyed enormous luck, especially with timing.

“We had amazingly good weather for our trek up, but it changed so quickly. Our base camp day, we had about three inches of snow. We were fairly comfortable getting down until the last couple of days but then it really hit hard and it really hit fast.

“And we were passing many people on the trail who were just on their way up, so they were heading into this storm as we’d just come out of it.

“The vast majority of people who were trapped were on the Tibetan side. We were on the Nepalese side.

“But one of the first things we heard – we were trying to get out at that point – the Nepalese government had instructed all helicopters were for search and rescue missions only. That was when stories started to filter down the mountain about how severe it was where we’d been just 48 hours earlier.”

A total of 580 trekkers along with more than 300 guides, yak herders and other support staff were taken off the mountain, the official Chinese Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday, in one of the largest search-and-rescue operations in the region.

Image:The green heart was left in remembrance of Rob’s daughter, Kezia. Pic: Rob Mason

The charity hike will “hopefully raise about £20,000” for the fund, which provides grants to local organisations working to improve mental health for young people in Jersey.

Since its launch, the fund has awarded more than £200,000 in grants.

More than 540,000 tourists visited the Everest region last year, a new record, although the area is temporarily closed to the public, the agency said.