UPDATED July 2010

In May 2010 I am attempting to summit , and in doing so I want to raise money for the British Limbless Ex Servicemen Association (BLESMA).

In April 2005, my army career was cut short following a parachute accident in . Along with other injuries, my femur was badly broken in several places. Amputation was an option discussed by the surgeons, but thankfully it was finally decided to try to save my leg and screw the pieces of bones back together. I am sure the surgeons in tried their best but unfortunately the operation was not successful. It was discovered that the screws holding the bone in place had come loose or had broken and this resulted in “non union” of the bone. I subsequently spent the next eight months either in a wheelchair or on crutches.

This gave me the short but poignant experience of day to day living with a physical disability. In November 2005, I went to Selly Oak for another attempt at fixing my still a broken femur. Thankfully, this operation was a success and together with the five rehabilitation courses at and a great deal of determination, I started on the long road to recovery.

By early 2008 I was back walking in the Brecon Beacons. In August of the same year, I was on top of Kilimanjaro and October 2008 saw an abortive attempt on in the due to bad weather. When the Sherpa says “this is not good we need to get down” - it pays to listen! However it hasn’t deterred me from having a go at the biggest challenge of them all – .

During my sessions at I met some amazing people, many of whom had terrible injuries. Their personal drive and positive attitude was inspirational and it is that mind set that I am taking to the . I can’t promise that I’ll make it to top, but I’ll do my very best, and it won’t be for lack of determination.

I have been left with one leg shorter than the other, and I will always walk with a slight limp, but this is nothing compared to what some have to deal with on a day to day basis. BLESMA do a fantastic job for our ex servicemen and women who have to live with some horrific injuries, and it is a charity well worth supporting so please donate to my JustGiving web page – every little helps.  

I want to thank Marcus Orme of www.burton-mccall.co.uk  for supplying me with some really useful kit to “try out” on the mountain. Thanks also to Simon and Jean from www.jayjaysbrecon.co.uk for the great modifications to my crampons and climbing equipment. Finally, I want everyone to know that this expedition has been completely self-funded, no money given from any source has been used to subsidise this expedition.

To learn more about BLESMA and the great work they do visit their website at www.blesma.org

You can follow my progress at www.peakfreaks.com/everestnews2010.htm

The expedition begins in Kathmandu on 30 March 2010.

Thanks for your donation and support!

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.

The trouble with doing Everest is that it’s a “Big Ask” and by that I don’t just mean the task of climbing the mountain. First of all you need to be prepared to write off at the very least four months of the year. This may require you (as it did me) to quit your job! Plus if you don’t get cash sponsors, which is very rare these days, expect your costs to be anything from £25,000 to £50,000+ depending on what operator you decide to use.

Once you’ve flown from Kathmandu to the Mountain . It’s an eight day journey on foot to Everest base camp. You’re going to climb in altitude from approx 8000ft at Lukla to 17600ft at Everest base camp. If you want to carry your own kit then get used to humping 40lbs on your back. There’s also a strong chance you will get pretty ill with sickness and diarrhoea. By day three my body had gone into auto eject at both ends! I’ve worked in since 2007 and if I’d had the same symptoms over there, I would have immediately got tested for cholera or dysentery. It’s nothing like that on the way to base camp, but I ended up with some really bad bugs in my stomach. This was to recur a further three times over the period of the expedition.

Some people on our move up the valley to base camp got pretty sick with the onset of high altitude mountain sickness - most of us got some symptoms of it. It can make you pretty miserable as the common early symptom is a “hangover from Hell” type of headache. The danger is: and it is a real danger, that the symptoms can progress into the much more serious condition of high altitude cerebral edema (HACE) which is swelling of the brain, of which advanced symptoms often prove fatal. High up on the face I had no choice (because he was on the same rope as me), to clamber over a Russian guy who had died the night before - apparently from HACE. Although I never came across her, I heard there was a Korean girl further up the mountain who had also suffered the same fate. Someone had pulled the dead climbers hood over his face. I mentioned to a Sherpa that this was a good thing to do, to give the dead a little dignity. He said it wasn’t really done for that reason. It was to stop the crows from picking the eyes out! “Very messy then” he said.

From what I understand, when a climber dies high up on the mountain the next of kin are obviously informed. However, to repatriate the body can be a six figure sum. Climbers that die on the route are usually moved and “Released” into a crevasse. I know that sounds a bit gory but there’s not really much else that can be done. I guess its “burial at sea” Himalayan style. Ironically in 50 or 60 years time the bodies, or parts of them, will probably show up at base camp as the ice fall moves down the valley to feed the glacier.

Everest base camp is sited on the Khumbu Glacier, as the weeks roll on the temperature starts to warm up and the ice starts to melt more quickly, as it melts it is not uncommon for body parts to become exposed and for the Sherpas to dig out the remains out of the ice. Apparently the remains are then taken to Pheriche which is about six hours down the valley and cremated in line with Buddhist traditions. Life at Base camp can be very routine, but luckily we had Pete “the bone collector” who had an uncanny knack for finding human body parts in and around base camp!

Base camp to camp 1 (19,500ft) takes about 6 hours. The route involves climbing the notorious Khumbu icefall. It is made up of massive “popcorn” pieces of ice. We were constantly warned about the ice fall and its ability to be very unstable and collapsing around you and swallowing you whole! Three times I went up there and obviously three times back down. We always tried to start early in the mornings when going up, in the hope that the ice would be more stable because of the lower temperatures. Each time I went up or down, the route had changed because some part of it had given way.

It always seemed to make Sherpas and some of the guides quite edgy. I don’t think I was as anxious about the icefall as perhaps I should have been, I was always in awe of the terrain I was going through. However I swear my heart would skip a beat when I was crossing some bottomless crevasse on simple aluminium ladders laid out across the divide, and just for an instance I’d freeze as I sensed I was about to lose my balance. The ladders were sometimes three lengths long and would be tied together with rope. It was always a relief to get to the top of the ice fall and on the relative flatness of the western cwm (pronounced coom). It was then a zigzag walk to avoid other crevasses as we made our way to camp 1.

It’s a fairly pleasant walk up the western cwm to camp 2 (21,000ft) . There were still a number of crevasses to negotiate, but nothing like the amount in the Khumbu icefall. By now we where in the western cwm proper, arguably the world biggest and highest cul-de-sac! Everest (29,035ft) is on your left. Nuptse (25,790ft) is on your right and (27,940ft) is straight ahead.

Camp 2 was more of an advanced base camp, with the Sherpa’s providing food from the kitchen tent. The food was basic and (some may be surprised by this!) I had problems having the appetite for it. I would scrounge around for extra boil in the bag type food whenever I could.

The move to camp 3 (23,500ft), starts in earnest after about a two hour walk to the base of the steep face. From there it’s a 2000ft climb up the face to camp 3. Air is getting very thin and it’s a real slog to get to the tents. Even the stoves start to struggle to boil water - collecting clean ice to boil up for water is essential as you just don’t carry enough to keep yourself hydrated.

Three times we went up the face to camp 3 and it never got any easier. It was on the second time that we headed along the western cwm that Marty my climbing buddy pulled out of the expedition. We had met two years previous on another expedition in the . Marty is ex Royal Marine and I’m ex so we automatically had a great rapport. We were pretty much at the base of the face when he told me he had problems with his hands and his legs felt like blocks of ice. I remember telling him to clench his fists inside his gloves but he told me he was already doing so. We had started very early that morning and the sun wasn’t going to come over the mountain for another hour or so and it was bitterly cold. I walked back to Marty and told him to take a glove off. When I saw his hand my jaw dropped and I blurted out some profanity which I think unnerved Marty as much as me seeing his hand. For the first few moments we just looked at it, the whole hand looked like it had turned to marble and the skin looked like it had shrink wrapped around the bones. I was sure I could see the sinews, bones and knuckles through the skin. I quickly unzipped my jacket and shoved Marty’s hand under my arm pit. For a short while we stood there like a couple of goons completely forgetting about his other hand. When we looked, his other hand was in the same condition and we both knew he couldn’t continue in that state. He’d lost all feeling in his hands and it would have been impossible for him to get up the face to camp 3. We said our good byes and Marty turned around and headed back down to camp 2. I was absolutely gutted - this was a major blow for me and obviously Marty was devastated. We had been watching out for each other for about 6 weeks or so and losing my climbing partner was to cause me problems further up the mountain. All the other members of the group had partnered up and I was now “ no mates”.

I started up the face for the second time and about 6 hours later arrived at camp 3, I shared the tent with Angel our guide. The next day we put the oxygen gear on and continued the climb up the face.

It’s a long way to Camp 4 (26,300ft). The camp is located on the infamous , but there were some other well known features to ascend whilst on the route. We would have to climb over the “yellow band” and finally the steep ascent over the top of the “ spur”. Once on top of the spur it was a fairly level walk along the traverse of the saddle. I got there and was tired out. I shared a tent with Greg and Fergus and I explained to them I was sure I’d had problems with my mask and that it wasn’t supplying the amount of oxygen it should be. Around the area of the yellow band, I had knocked off the small exhaust manifold that protects a rubber diaphragm seal inside the mask. When I finally got inside the tent at camp 4, I took the mask off and the seal dropped out. I think I had gone from the yellow band to the south col that day without much in the way of oxygen. There would have been a hole about one inch in diameter in the bottom of the mask, so I would have breathed in more rarefied air than oxygen.

Around 8pm I asked Greg if he could look at my left eye as it felt like it had grit in it and was really sore. It took no time to deduce I had snow blindness - I remained blind in that eye for the next 48 hours.

I don’t like the term “Death Zone” or Dead Zone”. It’s all a bit “” to me but the fact remains; you can’t survive for long at those altitudes. It’s not just that the air is so thin and the air pressure is so much lower than it is at sea level. Your body goes down a different metabolic path; it starts to absorb more protein - that’s basically your muscles! The other problem is weight loss, some experts that figure out all this stuff reckon that you start to burn up to 16,000 calories a day. Hugo Searle, group one’s guide said that eventually I would able take my forefinger and thumb of each hand and make them touch around my mid thigh. I didn’t believe him, but he was right, by the end of the expedition I’d lost 40lbs.

The next day we were told that we had to get down from the south col as there was a storm on its way. So that summit bid was aborted and much to our dismay and annoyance, we made the long journey back down to camp 2. Frustratingly, it seems there was no storm and we probably could have waited at the south col for another 24 hours and gone for it.

A few days later we were heading back up to the south col (camp 4) via a stormy night at camp 3. Around 7pm the following night we started the summit bid. By now my throat was getting ridiculously sore and my breathing become more of a rasp. Although I have to say the steepness of the climb made it slow going, so it wasn’t like I was gasping for breath. I can’t remember what time it was when I reached “The Balcony” (27,500ft) but by then I was unable to swallow. I could feel a lump in my throat and my breathing had got worse. I was bitterly disappointed to stop and turn back. I could see the south summit. But I think if I had carried on I would still be up there somewhere - and getting to the top wouldn’t count!!! With the help of a Sherpa I made my way back down the mountain to the col. It was still dark when I got back to the tent. I looked back up the mountain and saw the strange sight of a string of pin pricks of lights stretching from the balcony to the south summit. My throat was getting increasingly worse and I knew I had to get medical assistance.

At daylight Fergus had just collapsed into the tent after getting back from summiting, he was exhausted. We got his boots off and were dismayed at the colour of his toes, it was obvious he had frostbite. I explained to Fergus I had to get down as I was just getting weaker by the hour. I wouldn’t see Fergus again until where he had daily visits to the hospital to change the dressings on his badly frost bitten toes.

I packed up what gear I had and headed back to towards the spur. The move down to the relative safety of camp 2 turned into my own little “epic” I did the move down alone which wasn’t the brightest of ideas but I knew I couldn’t stay where I was. Everyone else was either coming down from the summit or resting at the col. It took me the rest of the day to get down to camp 2. There was very little left of camp 3, those tents that hadn’t been dismantled had been destroyed by the winds. By now I was close to exhaustion. I was right in the middle of the face, I could see camp 2 from where I was but knew it was still hours away. To make matters worse the rope I was using to abseil down had frozen into the ice and I didn’t have the strength to pull it free. There was another rope running parallel down the face about 20ft feet away so I decided to unclip and traverse across to the free rope. This really wasn’t a good idea, as I knew if I slipped the next stop would be the crevasses some 2000ft at the bottom of the face. I remember saying to myself “Thank F***” when I grabbed hold of the free rope and clipped in. I continued to abseil down the remainder of the face.

With about an hour of daylight left I stumbled into camp 2 and collapsed at one of our expedition tents. The Sherpas came out of the kitchen tent and bought me some hot sweet tea, my throat made it agony to swallow but it was absolutely delicious. I took some food and slept.

The next day the weather was overcast and snowing, although I could breath better my throat was steadily getting worst. The walk down to camp 1 was going to be pretty straight forward, but climbing back down the Khumbu ice fall (in my condition) was going to be a nightmare. At this point I had a eureka moment and negotiated my back pack to be carried down by one of the Sherpas. It was the best 40 quid I’ve ever spent!

It was still a struggle to get down the icefall even without carrying any gear other than my harness. About seven hours later I was back at base camp. I dragged myself over to the tent of the Himalayan Rescue Association. You might have followed the series last year on BBC1 called “Everest ER” that was these guys. I spent the rest of the day under their care. I was injected with the steroid Dexamethasone  and over the course of sometime made to drink about a gallon of as hot water as I could stand. The doctors were fantastic but warned me, that my climbing was over for this season and it was time to get to lower altitudes. They also said not to be alarmed but sometime that evening I was probably going to cough up something pretty unpleasant. Sure enough around 7pm that evening I coughed up a load of crud that I can only describe as chewed up cardboard!

The next day I packed everything up and headed down the valley (on a diet of throat lozenges) to Pheriche for some good food and a great banter with some other climbers. I was still smarting from my failure to summit so it was good to listen to other climbers experiences after which I became much more philosophical. For some it was the 3, 4, and for one guy 5 attempt. I got talking to a Canadian camera crew that had been here five times. Last year they tried from the north side of Everest and got to within 500ft of the summit only to turn back because of bad weather. This year they made it and back.

Three days later I was back in Lukla, I’d met up with Mango and Bridget Mangles on the way down. We had the mandatory three day wait before getting a flight to . Back at the hotel It was good to meet up with my climbing buddy Marty. After a day or so we sat down for about two and half hours and with the help of TA made a list of “Do’s and Don’ts” and things we would do differently if we were ever stupid enough to come back!

To finish off I just want to thank everybody that has supported me and donated to BLESMA through “Just Giving” - THANK YOU.

Thinking back.

I remember saying to Marty (after our third “bimble” up the Khumbu icefall), that having to deal with all the grief, pain, crap food, bad guts, lack of sleep etc. “None of this will be worth it if we don’t summit”.

That being said, this is (for me) unfinished business.