This report is probably quite a departure from the usual tales of flights in First and beautiful hotels. However, after some good feedback from our last couple of reports, I wanted to share a different sort of adventure from 29,000ft.



This year marks ten years since I climbed Mt Everest. The phrase “adventure of a lifetime” is much overused, but in the case of this trip, there’s no description which could be more accurate.

I’m not going to share the whole climb, but instead, the final 36hrs. The ones that matter most. The moment you know if you’re going to make it, or not.

As a brief forward, I should explain that when I went to climb Everest I was 19 years old. I’d already climbed the highest peaks on every continent except Asia. I suppose it was a sort of tier point run, but punctuated by some huge mountains! I’d started climbing aged 14, in Scotland, and gradually climbed bigger and bigger mountains. My mother is from the Netherlands, and my father is scared of heights, so it’s fair to say that climbing wasn’t in my genes. Nevertheless, I loved it. I’m often asked what the hardest part of the project was, and I always give the same answer; raising the money. Unfortunately it also wasn’t a bank-of-mum-and-dad adventure, and I was very fortunate to receive full sponsorship from INEOS, a chemicals company, at the eleventh hour.

Anyway, back to the mountain.

The launchpad for the summit attempt on Everest is Camp IV, at 7,950m perched on the South Col. To say it’s an inhospitable place would probably not do it justice. It’s called “The Death Zone”, and suffice to say that camping there for the night is about as enjoyable as it sounds.



By this stage, you’re climbing on bottled oxygen. You’re also trying to rest with the mask on, sleep, melt snow for water, and generally not take off the mask as much as you can help. It’s a rubberised fighter pilot style mask and initial reaction is to rip it off, as it feels so restrictive. It’s a claustrophobes worst nightmare.



At 9pm, it was time to leave for the summit. We’d been listening to the wind for hours, and it’d been gusting viciously. No chance we’d climb until it had calmed down. After another couple of false starts, we stepped in to the darkness at 11pm.



Climbing in the Death Zone is like total sensory deprivation. It’s dark. Your world is the tiny patch of snow immediately in front of you, illuminated by your head torch which seems to struggle with the cold as much as our bodies. You can’t see your feet because your down climbing suit is so puffy. You can’t feel anything because you’re wearing huge mittens. You can’t hear properly because you’re wearing a hat, and a balaclava, and two hoods. You haven’t eaten properly for a couple of days, and have to find the motivation to push out the hardest day of your life.

Those first few hours before sunrise are mentally very, very tough.