Tragic Trinity professor Seamus Lawless died after unclipping his safety harness to go to the toilet, a friend who was on the Mount Everest mission has revealed.
Explorer Noel Hanna said Bray native Seamus, 39, was the strongest climber out of his group and had been preparing for the arduous mission for several years.
He believes a freak gust blew the young dad to his death as he descended the mountain, just 200 metres from their next camp.
Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Noel revealed how their group had "perfect" conditions as they reached the summit and had not been affected by overcrowding.
He said: "We had the perfect summit morning, you'd see all these queues on the mountains, we had no queues at all.
"We got to the summit, everybody was in good form, we spent 15-20 minutes on the summit, took photographs and then made our way back down the mountain.
"We all stayed together until we got to the area above the balcony, everybody put new oxygen on.
"Seamus was the strongest of the three who were climbing with me, he decided that he would push on with the lead sherpa."
Noel remained behind with the other two female climbers who were having difficulties with their eye masks steaming up.
When they reached the next camp, they met the sherpa who told them Seamus had fallen, about 200 metres away.
"According to the sherpa, he needed to go to the toilet and at that stage, when you're only 200 metres and you're looking into camp, you obviously think you're safe but you're still on blue ice.
"The winds had started to pick up, one minute there's no wind, the next there's strong gusts.
"The only thing I can think of is that he clipped off the rope to go to the toilet and a freak wind just caught him".
Noel and his companions frantically searched around the area where Seamus had fallen but had to stop as weather conditions worsened.
"Unfortunately, the winds were picking up and it was getting dangerous for any of us to even go close to the edge and we couldn't search anymore.
"We searched till dark that evening but couldn't find anything.
"Seamus was a very strong climber.
"He had put training in for the last two years, three years, on different mountains, on cold mountains, had all the experience, had all the knowledge, had all the skills that were involved to climb Everest."
Noel says despite Seamus's tragic death, it will not put him off mountain-climbing.
He said: "I've had friends who've been killed in a car accident, it doesn't make me think that I'm not going to drive a car again, it's just a freak accident."
