Everest December 2006

Photos available for sale!

2007-01-02T17:17:00.000Z

Well, as promised, some of the best photos I took are available for sale now at

http://www.photoboxgallery.com/benfillmorephotography

You can view my 15 favourite photographs there, and if you're really impressed even buy a selection of prints directly from there! It goes without saying that all the profits made from the sale of these will go to the charity.

I would like to use this opportunity to say thanks to everyone again for their support throughout the past year, and I hope I have inspired some of you to do something similar.

Back safely now in the UK

2006-12-23T12:54:00.000Z

Sorry for the delay in writing this, it's been a hectic time.

All back in the UK now, after a few days of travel which wasn't expected. I am happy to say that I made it to the Everest Base Camp and also the summit of Kala Patthar at 5600m. The two main days above 5000m were extremely physically demanding coupled with the temperatures meant it was hard going. The wind decided to pick up to gale force during the night we camped at 5200m which was interesting to experience. Needless to say most of us didn't get much sleep that night, only to be woken up at 5am to attempt Kala Patthar. With cloudy skies turning into a blizzard the views weren't quite as expected but there was still a buzz.

What I took from this trip will change my outlook on life, and this whole experience has taught me a great deal, from how amazingly poor the majority of the people in this world are, to the foibles of life of a high-flying young doctor in the third world. I am happy to concur with everyone's advice that the Nepalese are fantastic people, hugely hospitable without wishing for anything other than a conversation in return. I look forward to my next trip there.

I'm going through my 300 odd photos now, hopefully distilling them into a manageable amount and will attempt to set up a gallery where you can purchase prints, with the profits going to the cause, online.

I'll let you all know when it's up and running.

Well I'm in Namche, feeling alright

2006-12-05T09:46:00.000Z

Yes, having an acclimatisation day in the Sherpa capital of Namche, situated 3440m above sea. Arrived here yesterday after some very interesting flights, with a stonking headache and lack of motivation. Didn't get any sleep last night, just laid there for ten hours, which was pretty frustrating. At least the temperatures have been kind, nothing too harsh as yet, although you do notice as soon as the sun goes down!

Anyway, went upto 3900m to the Everest View Hotel this morning to aid acclimatisation further and get some cool views! Even at this altitude, any exercise is really hard work. If you move fast at all, even just standing up, you get a huge head rush and feel out of it for a good few minutes. Even walking along flat ground you have to keep reminding yourself to go extremely slowly.

Now back in Namche and the headache has gone for now, and feeling much more energetic. Off to Tengboche tomorrow which has a monastery built at the foot of Ama Dablam (a stunning mountain, I can testify) and then onwards and upwards.

Here we go

2006-11-30T10:06:00.000Z

Well, I leave tomorrow.

It seems like it's been a long time coming - I first thought of this campaign whilst sipping wine with my mother the night before Easter. That doesn't seem like a long time ago, but it's over half a year.

I naively thought at the start that what a charity wants to gain out of people doing this type of challenge is money, it is rumoured after all that this is what talks. I thought that with The Stroke Association being a national charity, and the only one to support victims of the second single biggest killer in the UK, it would be fairly well known. Pretty quickly I realised that, I guess like all of my experiences with other, smaller, charities, it needs publicity as well as the green.

My total amount raised so far is around the £4,500 mark, which is a little under half of what I had originally hoped for. There is still plenty of time to make the remaining amount; I will be hoping to sell prints of any good photographs that I manage to fluke, but it probably won't get the total to five figures.

What I have done, however, is manage to get the charities name onto a variety of different media, and hopefully into a few peoples minds. The week of the fish slap, I made up the majority of the press surrounding The Stroke Association, managing to hit four national TV networks at prime time on a Saturday. I managed to get into several national papers the following day, along with numerous local papers in the preceeding week. I appeared on the primary BBC London radio station in the morning, and was sound-bited for all the other major radio stations in London. I have to come to think that this coverage would have cost easily five figures had it been done in a conventional manner so the charity has benefitted, albeit more opaquely than handing them a cheque. The success of this stunt rests on one extremely busy mum, who spared the time and her knowledge to give it the boost it needed. Huge thanks to her. (She knows who she is!)

I am now suffering a combination of excitement and nervousness - it's surprisingly difficult to figure which is which, but I expect they're both to blame. I mistakenly watched a program yesterday on the Galtuer tradegy of 1999 - 31 people died when an avalanche struck the remote Austrian ski resort. The avalanche was caused by excessive snowfall, followed by a brief period of slightly warmer weather. This caused a 'crust' of weakly bonding ice/snow on the surface of the snowpack. A subsequent storm then dumped light and fluffy snow on top of this hardened crust. Now it was only a question of how much more snow fell, and at what angle the slope was before it avalanched. Not surprisingly, I have been following the weather in the Khumbu valley where I am visiting - late October/early November had a surprising amount of snow fall, which has been followed by a period of crisp clear weather. However, the next few days are going to experience relatively warm weather - above zero celsius during the daytimes above 4500m. This means that if any quantity of snow falls once the temperature drops again, then it is likely to avanlanche as it will lay on the same icy crust that caused the 1999 avalanches. Thankfully, no great quantity of snow normally falls in December, it's normally towards the first half of January before anything appreciable falls. That doesn't take the concern out of my mind though. Anyway, I have other, greater concerns right now. Like who my tent buddy will be, and whether they will snore or not. Or whether my beard will cause problems going through Heathrow security.

I will try to update this blog as I go along and get the chance, otherwise upon my return I will soon have a website set up where the photos and videos will be available to see, and maybe purchase, if I am lucky to fluke one or two good ones.

Why this challenge?

2006-11-22T12:45:00.000Z

Well, only NINE days to go!! I cannot wait.

The past week saw six climbers lose their lives in a huge avalanche at a high camp on Ama Dablam - widely regarded as one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. The camp had a huge ice tower hanging over it, and had been regarded by some as too dangerous to be a safe spot to pitch, but other's had camped there without problem. A SAR team only found remnants of their tents and some clothes, hope has all but vanished now for them. Let our wishes lie with their families now.

This sobering event brought upon a question I thought it best to answer in a video...

18 days to go!

2006-11-13T22:20:00.000Z

So remember you can subscribe via RSS feed or email - the link is at the bottom of the sidebar on the right!

Onto something a little different...

Nangpa La

2006-10-26T17:05:00.000Z

Well, the past week has been interesting and worrying.

On September 30th, news broke of the Chinese army taking pot shots at a group of Tibetans using the time of year to cross a high pass, Nangpa La, into Nepal and escape their suppressed lives. Before the Chinese came in and took over Tibet in 1949, Tibet had 5 million people and was a sovereign state independent of China. One million Tibetans have since been killed, and over 6,000 monasteries have been burned and ruined. Today the Tibetan people are a minority in their own country. The voice of Tibetan culture is now merely a flutter in the wind, its colorful history a shadow of the past.
The pass the Nangpa La refugees crossed is easily visible from the base camp of the sixth highest mountain, Cho Oyu. Here gripped mountaineers videotaped the cold blooded massacre. You can see a short film here.
Initially the Chinese said they didn't know what the reports were regarding, but they quickly changed their story. Hours later and before this footage came to light, they claimed the soldiers had acted in self defense, the escaping Tibetans had apparently attacked them. I think the video shows a completely different scenario. The Nangpa La refugees numbered about 70, most of whom were young children led by a nun and a handful of young adults. About 30 are still unaccounted for.

On a more cheerful note - Berg Adventures - had the first fall summit of Everest in four years. A team of them chose to descend in an increasingly popular method - on skis. The going was difficult from the summit, so they had to unclip to negotiate the rocky sections, but several of them subsequently descended 5000ft on the Lhotse Face on wood. See here for an amazing article by one of the men.

Maoists, snow and blindness

2006-10-18T19:58:00.000Z

Well it's been a busy while since I last posted. One new thing I've added is that you can now subscribe to the blog - either by RSS feed if you're techy, or via email if that's more your game.

So, I've heard rumours from several sources (trekinfo.com) saying that the maoist rebels are back to their old tricks; demanding money from tourists. Ever since the cease fire from earlier this year, things appeared (at least from the outside) to have gotten better. There were even talks of the maoists disbanding and forming a governmental body. Still, these latest reports are from the Khumbu valley (the one I'll be visiting), a place hitherto not affected by their beliefs. Apparently the current 'tax' is 100NR per day which isn't the end of the world for me, but it's what it is going to support which is important. That kind of money goes a long way in this impoverished country.

The weather has continued to get colder and colder - there has been light snow this past week, but temperatures have plummeted. The freezing level (the altitude at which it is zero degrees) has dropped from 5200m not long ago to around 3800m this week. Nighttime temperatures have already hit -15C as low down as Pheriche (4200m ish - where the Himalayan Rescue Association clinic is based). And they're only going one way from now on!

As some of you may know, this past week saw me turn a quarter of a century old. I have to mention this restaurant that Sophie took me to, to celebrate - Dans Le Noir. It is an amazing experience, and I really recommend everyone tries it at least once. The premise is that the entire restaurant is pitched in darkness the entire time. You are served by blind waiters a surprise menu of what the chef thinks will taste good. And boy it's dark. Nothing prepares you for it - the waiter leads you by arm through a series of thick curtains and after the third you cannot see a thing. Not even a glint of a cufflink or a watch - these have all been removed and are stored in lockers outside. You are led to your seat and are left to your own devices whilst the waiter fetches your drinks. How they can pour a glass of wine, knowing when to stop, without spilling anything I have to admire. All of the things you expect to happen do, but there's a host of experiences that hit you unawares. I'll leave you to find those out without spoiling it, but you are left questioning whether your eyes still being open makes a difference, and what did the person who sat next to you look like?

The Team

2006-10-07T13:12:00.000Z

This week was an interesting one - I got to find out who else is on the expedition team. There are ten others, it's actually fairly split between the gals and guys. I dropped an email to them all introducing myself, and heard back from a few already. One guy is doing it for Hazel's Footprints Trust, a charity formed to continue the work of a close friend who was tragically lost. Another is doing it for the British Acoustic Neuroma Association after she had developed this rare case of a brain tumour and has since bounced back from the ordeal excellently.

Needless to say it's great having a bunch of names, and having had some initial contact with the group of people I will be sharing this experience with. I feel a lot more normal now, knowing that they are just as excited as I about the trip, and also just as nervous about what to take and what kit to buy. I got a book this week - Trekking in the Everest region by a Jamie McGuinness. Even after a quick flick through it's been immensely helpful. I know a little more about what to expect from every aspect of the trip - the culture, the weather, the clothing required etc. Here's a quote from what to expect at the time of year I will be visiting - "You must be prepared for savage cold and infrequent snowstorms. Above 5000m a cold clear night can put thermometers off the scale." He also goes on to say that it has become common for a large dump of snow to occur sometime in Nov/Early Dec due to a cyclone degenerating on the Himalaya. However this should be the only snow I should really expect - otherwise it's meant to be crystal clear blue skies almost every day. Here's hoping.

He's also written about some worthwhile exploring journeys to go on on those rest days. Due to the altitude it's necessary to have an acclimitisation rest day every third day or so and sleep no higher than the previous day. You can however, your fitness notwithstanding, go exploring around higher and off the beaten track as long as you come back down to the acclimitisation altitude. I had been slightly worried that these would be mindessly boring days but with some of this information I hope that it's possible to go off and do my own thing during these days. The valleys in this region are all fairly unexplored due to the altitude and remoteness so it's fairly easy apparently to 'discover' your own area where only a few humans have gone before. I remember reading somewhere that only 2% of Americans who visit the Appalachian chain of mountains ever stray more than 400 yards from the roads. Now, I'm not saying the Nepalese are lazy - quite the opposite - but part of me is hoping that I get to see some sights which 98% of the trekkers/tourists in the region never get to see.

Air crashes and bad weather

2006-09-28T15:31:00.000Z

Well, since posting last week about the weather turning from bad to awful, it went even worse. Reports say about six feet of snow fell over two days at EBC - see the photo below from Berg Adventures who are one of the few expeditions attempting to summit this fall. One of the dispatches from them reads "When you sleep through the night in a steady snowstorm as we all did last night it soon gets very quiet. Our VE-25’s had a thick layer of snow them that insulated us from the sound and I think most of us slept unaware that it might be snowing. Jimmy commented this morning that is was quite warm and that is one thing that clues you in when it gets quiet and warm there is probably some snow building up on your tent. The other thing that clued us in was at about 4:30 this morning a crew of Sherpas were out shaking the snow off our tent and reminding us that is was almost morning and there was some snow to clear."

I've heard reports of ten feet of the white stuff falling last December in the space of a day, but I think there's a certain element of the mountaineers equiavalent of 'the fish was this big' in that.

Nevertheless the bad weather makes travel of all varieties hard work. 300km away, a helicopter fell out of the sky, with all 24 on board dying in the accident. They included a group of conservationalists who were returning from the landmark ceremony to hand over the Kanchenjunga conservation area from the government to the local community.

There is alot of debate about how well Heli's can perform in tough mountain conditions. Across the Alps and the Rockies they have undoubtedly saved many lives (I heard of a girl last summer who used her mobile to alert the emergency services whilst stuck high on a swiss mountain) but in the Himalaya it's another story. The thin air means that the rotor blades find little to get purchase on and subsequently cannot fly as reliably and as controlled as they would like or sometimes need to. The highest evac from a heli I've heard of is above the Khumbu Icefall (at the bottom of which is EBC) when Beck Weathers was airlifted out in 1996 after the tragedies high on Everest. This altitude was unprecendented, and has never been repeated. On the walk along the moraine to EBC there are several remains of crashed heli's that couldn't handle it. The most recent being one from 2003 where the pilot was the same as the one whose bravery helped save Beck Weathers life in 1996. In general people around the Khumbu are still not happy with helicopters flying much above 4000m - every time they do so is a needless risk of life for not only the pilot but those on the ground. There is a working consensus that it should only be allowed in life or death circumstances, not people being lazy at the end of the climbing season.

Sponsorship

2006-09-20T19:46:00.000Z

Well, you might well have noticed the big banner scrolling above this? I'm proud to say that Nottingham-based Subaru/Rally car tuners TSL Motorsport have donated a very generous amount of money to the cause. Good for them. And good for the Stroke Association.

Not sure if you saw the program on BBC the other day - Everest ER - very interesting indeed. It followed two doctors who volunteer 10 weeks per year to live at Base Camp during the climbing season (April/May) and attend to the various emergencies that are bound to occur. This year, they did some ad hoc dentistry (this is actually one of the things I'm fearing the most; at these extremely low temperatures the metal fillings in your teeth can contract more than the tooth enamel, meaning they fall out and leave you in agony), injected antibiotics to help relieve the Khumbu cough (the cough resultant of the dry rarefied air powerful enough to snap your ribs) and of course they helped with numerous cases of frostbite ranging from mild to severe (why the BBC show this at 8pm when you're eating your dinner, I will never understand. Frostbite really isn't pretty).

There was another clinic further down the mountain in nearby Pheriche (4245m) which they followed too. This place was actually in a building rather than a tent, and was thus better equipped to deal with the harsher illnesses that strike. They showed a case of a Polish dude with HAPE (remember where his lungs fill with his own fluids in an attempt to drown him?) and a young Aussie guy with HACE (the brain swelling one). Without the clinic they would now both be six feet under. Good to know they're there (sadly as I'm going out of season, they'll be shut by the time I get to Pheriche).

I just checked the weather forecast for the area - this week the zero celsius line has been hovering around the 5200 to 5500m mark. Pretty much where BC is. And it's still September! And I was hoping for no snow...

Onto bigger things...

2006-09-09T15:17:00.000Z

So it's been a few weeks since the melee of the fish slap, life is returning to normal finally. The woman's weekly magazine Pick Me Up are running an article on my mother's story and the subsequent campaign by myself, which will hopefully appear soon. The magazine has a circulation of almost half a million, so that's great awareness for the charity - hopefully stroke victims won't have to stumble through the first few years without knowing they exist. Needless to say funds are always appreciated, and I'm hoping that some of their readers will come online and find this site and give a little to the charity.

Stroke Week is due to start on the 6th October, with an 18 month long campaign by The Stroke Association to raise awareness further. You'll be glad to know I have something in the pipeline which I'm aiming to tie in with this program, more news on that soon!

With less than three months left until I depart for Nepal, I've decided it's time to get fit. I've given up booze, put myself onto a structured training program, and look forward to eating good, nutritious food and lots of it. I've been told to expect to lose over 10lbs in body weight in the first few days on the expedition so I've gotta get some fat surrounding these bones. In the least it'll act as great insulation.

After the fish slap...

2006-08-21T13:54:00.000Z

Well who would have thought it. It got to a whopping £210! It was a very generous girl who paid the money, and I was slapped gratifyingly around the chops on Saturday by Lucy Berry.

The whole week was hugely entertaining, the news got as far as Hong Kong and Russia as well as the Saturday evening news on the BBC and ITV in London! Below is a list of links to the interesting sites that I know about, if you find any others, then please do let me know!

As I have been saying all along, I am trying to not just raise funds, but also awareness and this publicity campaign has hopefully brought The Stroke Association to many peoples minds. I would to thank all the people who contributed to the fish slapping event and those who made side donations. All of your money has been gratefully received and it is much appreciated. However, enough is never enough, and please do buy some cards by clicking below or on the right. All profits go to the cause.

Let's start this off with the ITN advertorial....

Here's all the other links...

The Beeb
The Metro
Yahoo News
The Times
GQ
The Observer
Yahoo News (again)
Gulf Times
Emirates News
Some German Article
Random Blog

And for those that wish to see the actual slapping....

Sky News coverage

The Fish Slap...

2006-08-14T19:09:00.000Z

I saw this past week the greatest eBay auction yet. A man is putting up for bids the opportunity to have his face slapped in public with a wet fish. See http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300016782808&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:UK:31 for this crazy auction. Yes, you're right it's me.

Why? Well, to get publicity. Christine Samuelian has been extremely kind and helped me with a press release and a photo call for the nations press. Within an hour of sending it out this morning, I had a live radio interview booked for a few hours time and a press photographer on his way over with the instruction to source his own fish. After a fun 30 minutes of puckering with the red snappoer, I dived back inside to speak to the British Forces and told them they should make their way down to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park this Saturday at high noon to see a slapping of their lifetime!

Here's hoping it'll get some good publicity - already around 400 people have checked out the auction, and it's only going to get more widely known! As I keep saying, half of what I'm trying to do is raise awareness for the Stroke Association www.stroke.org.uk, hopefully the funds will follow.

Cards, cards and more cards!

2006-08-01T10:49:00.000Z

I’m glad to say that fundraising has kicked in to a new gear this week. I’ve just this day taken delivery of the first batch of cards – 100 packs in total – all hand signed by myself, which are now open for immediate sale! The price is £4.99 per pack of 5 cards, and postage is £1 upwards (depending on how many packs you buy). Please see below for the pictures of the selection you will receive. I obviously only have a certain timeframe of credit with the printers, so please buy them now rather than later in the year! I will be selling these at various bookstores throughout London, so don’t expect them to last that long! You can buy some NOW online via the shopping channel to the right of this paragraph!

I’m also thinking of some ingenious things to auction on eBay, for starters I have a current listing at http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300012612360&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:UK:31 where you should all go and bid NOW!!

It’s a great place to get funds coming in – if you can think of anything that you can donate which could be auctioned off on eBay then please do donate it!

Water and ice

2006-07-24T20:02:00.000Z

It's starting to get not a tad bit ironic that almost everything that is required for me to stay alive on this trip has an inherent danger. Water I am glad to say, is no exception. I've been informed that due to the extremely subzero temperatures, the exceptionally high altitude and the rugged landscape there is no moisture in the air. This means that before your body can absorb the air and use it to abate your coughing for a moment, it has to first humidify it. This means that you lose approximately three liters of water a day just by breathing! Accompanied by exercise, experts recommend a water intake of about five liters a day. That might not sound a great deal, but it's twenty glasses a day! And how often do you drink your eight? You can also imagine my slight trepidation, then, being a male and needing to urinate frequently during temperatures below that where your peas and turkey are huddled up! You might then suggest, 'well be a man and wet yourself if you're so scared of getting frostbite there'.

And herein lies the beauty. In cold temperatures, survival isn't about finding things to keep you warm, it's about avoiding the things that make you cold. Ice will remove 20x times more heat than wood or fabrics. If you decide to let rip in your trousers, then pretty soon you can expect that to freeze in your pants and then very effectively remove the last bit of heat from your hoo-ha, leaving it to freeze and drop off. In a similar vein, you are not recommended to allow yourself to sweat (this'll freeze too) nor is it wise to hide your head in your sleeping bag at night. Your breath with condensate and freeze, hitting you twice as hard as it's not only sapping your own body heat, it's also reducing the effectiveness of the down that is holding your body temperature up.

Metal is to be avoided too. Good choice then that I wish to try and get some nighttime photos with the moon illuminating the mountains. After discarding digital cameras on the basis that they wouldn't work in these temperatures and that their batteries would die on day two, I starting looking back at film cameras to take such photos. Split between the extra weight and hassle of a medium format camera to the smaller sized 35mm SLRs and their reduced quality, I asked a couple of professionals for their advice. I am now the proud owner of a fully mechanical (so that it only needs a battery to power the light meter) SLR - the Olympus OM1n. Jeremy Preston from work has very kindly donated several of his lenses to fully equip my purchase. A couple of filters are on order now, and I feel as though, after a little familiarisation with film again, I am ready to do the mountains justice.

I've also managed to get some free advertising on my much loved weather forecasting site (http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Everest.shtml), where you can follow the weather conditions at varying altitudes on Mt Everest (and any other possible mountain resort you can think of!). Let's hope this results in some increased publicity for the cause!

Hypo and the hype

2006-07-17T20:17:00.000Z

Firstly, please note the shopping to the right side of this blog. I have made a basket for you to fill, needless to say that all profits go to the cause!

I feel as though there are two main enemies I will have to fight in my trip - the altitude and the cold. Whilst there isn't much I can do about the first, I can take several steps towards helping with the second. My sleeping bag arrived this week, weighing in at around 2kg, once out of it's sac it expands to unbelievable proportions. Once out, you think there's never a hope it'll fit back in. Out of interest I climbed into it in an air conditioned office (circa 18C) and started sweating within 30 seconds. It is incredibly warm.

Frostbite is a major concern on this trip. It is basically what happens when your flesh freezes. If it's minor, and you are able to thaw it, then you're lucky and will keep the use of that limb for your future. Things get difficult when you can't keep it thawed - much like ice cream you shouldn't refreeze thawed skin. If this happens, it's likely to turn gangrenous, resulting in the black hardened skin as seen below.

Apparently prevention is the key to avoiding frostbite - one wise quip from the web says that you shouldn't ignore the feeling of numbness on your fingers and toes as that might be the last feeling you have!

Linked inextricably together with frostbite is hypothermia. This can kill in mere minutes. It results from the body losing heat, we all know that usual body temperature is 37C/98F. We've all been waiting for that bus in winter when you are so cold that your body starts shaking. It's doing this to try to raise your core temperature back up. If this core temp drops by just 2C the shivering stops, and your body goes into emergency mode. It only maintains temperature around the vital organs, your brain, heart, and lungs and shuts down blood flow everywhere else. Your pulse weakens and your arteries widen. Now you feel hot, you want to remove your clothes. Not long after this you slip into unconsciousness and eventually your heart stops.

Sadly, adding clothes is not a way to avoid this as it does not add warmth. You need something hot next to your body. Commonly this is either improvised hot water bottles, or the body of another human. As with the altitude ailments, your brain fogs and becomes illogical in how it thinks. In 1998, a climber died of hypo on the north side of Everest. His only remains were his clothes neatly folded just beneath the summit. Confused, this was his final attempt to restore order to his world.

To help with the prevention of hypo, I should remember the COLD clothing principles...

C - Clean

O - Open when exercising to reduce sweating

L - Loose/Layers to retain heat

D - Dry to limit heat loss by evaporation.

My sister this week forwarded me an interesting story about a trip similar to that that I'm doing, which might be worth a read (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5147844.stm). I'm just hoping that we don't get snow for many many reasons now.

Christmas Cards for Sale!

2006-07-13T15:49:00.000Z

Mount Everest

2006-07-10T19:31:00.000Z

So Mount Everest. Chomolungma - Mother of the Universe. Sagarmatha - Forehead of the Sky. The highest point above sea level in the world. Current estimates put the height of the mountain at 8,848m (29,028ft). It's height was first estimated in 1856 by a team of surveyors in India who calculated it to be 29,000ft. In their papers, they quoted figures of 29,002ft to make it look as though it wasn't a rounded estimate. Ever since that day, people all over the world have had the crackpot idea to climb it. The most famous attempt was in 1924 by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. On June 8th, they were last seen high on the ridge, just beneath the summit. Fifty five years later, a Chinese climber admitted to a friend that he had discovered a body that he thought to be Irvine's, but he was killed in a fall the very next day before he could tell anyone precisely where it was. Twenty years after this, Mallory's body was discovered in the vicinity of the Chinese camp. Great debates have raged ever since as to whether they summited the mountain; but without a safe descent, how could they claim success?

Numerous people tried in vain for almost thirty years after Mallory and Irvine, there was one notable fellow who tried to crash a plane high on Everest and use this as a base to summit from. Needless to say that he was a) English, and b) didn't survive. These attempts were all made from the Northern (Tibetan) side, but in 1950 when China took over Tibet access to westerners was closed. Just as this happened, Nepal opened it's doors and people began trying from the southern side, which is still the most popular today. And then in 1953, Edmund Hillary (from New Zealand) and Tenzing Norgay (Nepalese) finally made it to the top via the south route. Everest had finally been conquered. The firsts to make it there without bottled oxygen were the Sud Tirolean Reinhold Messner and the Austrian Peter Habeler in 1978. Only two years later did Reinhold return to summit solo in what has been heralded as one of the greatest achievements in mountaineering.

Nowadays, around 2,500 people have summited Everest, and the number of deaths has exceeded 200. This season happened to be the worst for a long time with controversy being sparked as up to forty climbers passed a stricken David Sharp, who was sheltering from the jet stream winds 300m below the summit, without any of them attempting a rescue. As this was coming to light another climber, who had been declared dead after spending the night exposed just below the summit, was found alive by a team of four climbers who unselfishly threw in their summit bids to take him down. He has made a full recovery. The discussion of whether there are too many climbers high on the mountain started ten years ago when tradegy struck. Eight people died including two highly experienced expedition leaders when a storm hit the mountain late in the day. If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend reading Jon Krakauers Into Thin Air (see http://outside.away.com/outside/destinations/199609/199609_into_thin_air_1.html for a intro).

In other news, the footie has finally finished. A big shout out goes to Theo Walcott, whose performance (or lack thereof) made a foolish bet come good to the tune of £50 for the charity! Wish I could say the same for the French - I pulled them in the sweepstakes at work, and it would have bolstered the donations by £160 had they not fallen at the last. Ah well.

Is that water boiling, or are you just happy to see me...

2006-07-03T20:34:00.000Z

Well, this week has perhaps been the busiest yet. Firstly, I heard from the local paper, The Southern Daily Echo, who are running a story about the trek. The paper has a wide audience throughout the south and the solent, so I'm hoping for a good full page spread! They wanted a few photographs of me and my kit (albeit a bit sparse at the moment!) which they duly got. The first time I see myself will be along with thousands of southerners. Fingers crossed!

The following day, I heard from one of my old teachers at Noadswood Secondary School, and we had a good long chat about things. I am very happy to say that they are going to be splitting the proceeds of a mufti day next term between Children In Need and this cause, The Stroke Association. In return, they get a bumbling idiot to stand in front of one thousand bored kids for half an hour sometime next year. Nervous? Pah, how cruel can kids be?

Right, in an effort to sound not so doom-and-gloom about the trip, I thought I'd share with you some of the quirky things I'm looking forward to doing when I'm there. Possibly the best will be sticking my fingers into a bowl of boiling water. Doesn't sound like fun initially, but here's the thing - it won't hurt! Due to the low atmospheric pressure up there, water boils at a temperate 75-80C, cold enough to dunk bits of your body in without any pain. In a similar vain, you can boil water in a rather ingenious way - by holding the kettle at the focal point of a metallic dish several feet wide (think of the kettle being where the antenna is on a satellite dish). In fact, the sun is so strong up there, if you put paper in place of the kettle it'll catch fire. Ray Mears would be proud. I'm also looking forward to having an excuse to take Viagra, according to the latest scientific findings it helps high altitude exercise by up to 45% (for those that don't believe me see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060624120556.htm)! So, high altitude isn't all about coughing and death, the locals have obviously carved their existence out around there for millenia, and all without the need to spend £50 on a pack of tablets!

Anyone thirsty?

2006-06-26T21:08:00.000Z

Well, this week has been one of good and bad things.

On the good points, I have taken delivery of my first batch of drinks. Extreme Drinks (of the Extreme Sports channel fame, www.extremedrinks.com) have very kindly offered me a deal to offload their merchandise with all the profits going to the cause. I have opted for their H2O No Gas mineral water initially to see what demand is like for this highly cool uniquely designed drink.

I am suggesting a donation of £1 per bottle, or you can buy cases of 24 bottles by clicking on the image above (please remember to add appropriate postage if you don't live in London or Hythe, Hampshire). If people like the look of their other drinks, then please let me know, and I'll get some in! I'll be canvassing all the major London parks throughout the summer with these, any help with this is much appreciated! On the bad side of things, my sleeping bag and down jacket purchases have fallen through, so it's back to the drawing board with them! Oh well, onwards, and well, upwards.

I also just watched a TV program where Oxford-based geographer Nick Middleton went on a pilgrimage to walk around the sacred Mount Kailash (on the silk route near the Tibetan plateau). In this program, he mentioned that the Himalaya are still being thrown skyward by the Indian tectonic plate thrusting under the Eurasian plate.

The crumpling where these two plates meet causes the rugged landscape of the main spine of the Himalaya, but it's behind this where things get really interesting. The Indian plate refuses to entirely submerge under the vastly larger Eurasian plate and does it's best at poking through again. This in turn forces the Eurasian plate upwards for a thousand kilometres back or so, creating the high Tibetan plateau. This is the highest plateau in the world, at around 5000m in altitude, and not much exists up there, it's the world's third least populated area after Antartica and Northern Greenland (so not very populated then!). However, as a stark reminder of where this land came from, the direct sunlight has burnt off most water leaving behind expansive fields of sea salt. The Tibetan plateau was, of course, once the seabed but it is now the roof of the world.

What Killer?

2006-06-19T20:43:00.000Z

I watched a documentary film this past week (http://www.grizzlymanmovie.co.uk) where a man called Timmy Treadwell walked into the wilds of Alaska every summer to hang out with the local grizzly population. As he continually makes clear throughout the film, his life is on the precipice of death the whole time. After 13 years of living with the bears, he finally got what was coming to him. Without being too overdramatic, the dangers of my trek are somewhat similar. The subtle difference is that although Timmy cannot influence whether a bear attacks him or not, he still gets to see it coming. The greatest killer on my trek isn't so apparent.

A sizeable amount of people going to these altitudes contract a sickness far worse than ordinary altitude sickness - I've come to realise shortness of breath and coughing are pretty much par for the course. As mentioned before, the body is under extreme stress to move oxygen around more efficiently, and so it produces an over-abundance of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. This in turn can thicken the blood to the consistency of custard (so blood thinning drugs like aspirin are therefore the mountaineers best friend). This coupled with faster heart rates often puts too much pressure on the poor little capillaries in your lungs, causing them to burst and leak fluids. Your body is, with stunning adeptness, drowning itself. This manifests itself in the person by bouts of coughing at rest, drowsiness, fatigue, well pretty much the same symptoms you've been suffering from your mild case of altitude sickness. Without immediate descent, somebody who is suffering from this High Altitude Pulmonary Edema, or HAPE, can usually expect to hear the 'Death Rattle' (the gurgling of these fluids in your chest when you exhale) within 24 hours and not survive much longer.

A related ailment is High Altitude Cerebral Edema, HACE, which occurs when the brain expands and ceases to function correctly. HACE is normally diagnosed by the victim experiencing the loss of rational thinking (i.e. you're so far gone that you don't realise that you have HACE and are mere hours from death) and the near-complete loss of coordination (think of the last time you were comically drunk). Again the only cure is immediate descent.

Slightly worrying then that both illnesses cloud your judgement sufficiently so that you don't realise you have them, as well as making it near impossible for you to get yourself down the mountain to recover from them when the penny finally drops. It is these conditions that I am most scared of - they have struck people at these altitudes many times before, and will undoubtedly again. HAPE also tends to prefer young, fit trekkers (much like myself) which isn't great news either.

On the bright side of things, I have finally made arrangements for a sleeping bag - I've opted for the Mountain Equipment Everest 1250 (http://www.mountain-equipment.co.uk/content.php?page=showproduct&prodid=94) which is comfort rated at -22C and has an extreme survival limit of -57C which should be plenty. A down jacket for the evenings and rest periods is also on order, the end-of-line North Face Nuptse is a bargain at the moment and couldn't be resisted any longer!

One thousand pounds already raised...

2006-06-12T19:58:00.000Z

I am proud to say that we have already hit the thousand pound mark (please visit http://www.justgiving.com/everestdec2006 to see who has been so kind so far). The last week has been a busy one - fundraising has kicked into full swing with many companies being approached in the hope one or two will have the heart to help our cause. I am glad to say this appears to have been fruitful, I am in discussion with several companies right now with interesting fundraising ideas which, fingers crossed, you will hear about soon.

What with this 30C heat recently, it's hard to imagine what the temperatures will feel like in six months time. I've been busy looking at getting my kit together - hit a slight stumbling block on the sleeping bag front as there aren't many built to keep a human alive throughout a himalayan winter night. A big surprise initially to me was finding out the temperature extremes that will be common on the trek. Due to the altitude, there is little ozone up there. This has two effects - firstly that in the midday sunshine it's gonna feel hot, as all that UV is bouncing around rather than being soaked up, so temperatures of upto 30C are not uncommon. However, as the atmosphere is so thin, it cannot retain heat for long, as soon as the Sun sets, it's supposed to drop to -15C odd with the night-time lows plummeting as far as 40 below. This happens to coincide nicely with the current limit of sleeping bag technology - there are only a handful that are warm enough to keep a fully nourished, fully hydrated, fully clothed human from frostbite or death for an extended period at these extremes. I am yet to decide on my cocoon for the expedition.

Trek info...

2006-06-05T20:38:00.000Z

As there have been several requests for more information about the trek, I thought I would go into it in a little more detail...

Firstly, the group size will be 10-20 people with Sherpa and porter support. It will take about 10 days hard slog from the local airport (Lukla 2860m/9,380ft, to give you a taste of how hard even getting to the region is, here's a random quote from the internet - 'There is about a 700-metre (2,000 ft.) angled drop at the end of the runway to the valley far below. The sight of the little runway when coming in to land will surely get the adrenaline pumping. Lukla airport has also got an inclined runway and is considered one of the most difficult airports in the world.')

to get to our final destination, and about four days coming back after a summit day climbing Kala Pattar at 5545m (18,192ft) for panoramic views of Everest.

The itinerary cannot really be set in advance as variables like the weather and the group's health will most certainly throw off any initial estimates. We will not be using any of the local teahouses en-route, but rather we've opted to camp in two man Vango's on a bed of fallen rock. After an early rest day to help assist with the acclimatization at the Sherpa capital of Namche

it will generally be about 8 hours of trekking per day. We'll generally wake at 6am, be packed and ready to go by 8am, and start look to setup camp again around 4pm depending on our progress. Food will be of the local basic variety, toilet facilities of the 'squat and drop' nature. I guess everyone will be so knackered that we'll be asleep by 9pm getting our bodies and minds set to do it all over again in the morning. This is of course assuming things don't go wrong.

Cheyne stokes and me...

2006-06-01T20:42:00.000Z

So, i'll have 9 days in what is technically classed as 'very high altitude' and a handful of hours in what is classed as 'extreme altitude'. During this time, the body is fighting for oxygen, doing everything it can to get more oxygen to your muscles and organs. Breathing rates commonly increase to 40-60 breathes per minute from a sea level rate of 12. Red blood cells are created in growing abundance in an attempt to give what little oxygen there is a vehicle to get it to where it's needed. Surprisingly, your body tells itself to breath by monitoring carbon dioxide (not primarily oxygen as you might believe) levels in your blood, the more carbon dioxide there is the more you breathe. An increased breathing rate has the reciprocal effect of being remarkably good at removing carbon dioxide, thus blunting your brain into telling you not to breathe. When you're awake, it's not so difficult to force yourself to breathe, however (and there's always a however) when you sleep an odd balance develops between these two triggers. A pattern of the slowing of your breathing to breath-holding to a period of rapid recovery breathing insues. This has the interesting knack of causing a host of anxieties in the victim:

Waking up bolt upright fully aware you are not breathing and haven't been for a while.
Waking up bolt upright during the fast breathing recovery phase (this is slightly more worrying than you might first think - it resembles a primary symptom of a fatal case of HAPE, more on this later).
Waking up bolt upright fully aware that your sleeping partner is not breathing and hasn't been for a while.

This type of breathing pattern is commonly termed as 'Cheyne-stokes breathing' and is what some victims of stroke suffer from during their stroke, or for the rest of their lives. Slightly ironical given the cause perhaps?

As you can imagine, I am not looking forward to experiencing this first hand. Something like 70% of people visiting high altitudes suffer from these disturbed sleep patterns, so I guess I don't have much choice in the matter.

Now the UK's second biggest killer....

2006-05-29T16:30:00.000Z

So, it's the end of the first week of fundraising. In that time approximately 2,500 people in the UK have had a stroke, of which about 1,000 would have easily preventable had the victim known they had seriously high blood pressure, and they could have done something about it. Also this week, the government released figures showing that for both sexes cerebrovascular disease (predominately strokes) is now the UK's second biggest killer. It accounted for approximately 13% of all female deaths, and about 8% of all male deaths.

In other news, I am now Snow & Rock's (http://www.snowandrock.com) favourite customer after taking up one of their salespeople's Saturday morning to explain the finer details of trekking boots. Glad to say he got his sale though.

Thanks to everybody who has suggested fundraising ideas so far - they're all going onto the growing list, which hopefully will help supplement the £500ish already donated.

And so it begins...

2006-05-03T19:40:00.000Z

A 16 day trek through high altitudes in the midst of a himalayan winter. Why you may rightly ask?

Temperatures will fluctuate over 40 degrees centigrade daily.
Altitudes will rise from 12,000 to over 18,000 feet.
Oxygen content in the air will vary from 75% to 50% of that at sea level.
Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) strikes indiscriminately at 2% of people who do this trek.
Before 1996 the fatality rate of this trek was roughly 0.5%.

Hang on a minute. This was supposed to be enjoyable. WHY would someone commit themselves to such torture, especially in the harshest time of year to visit this part of the world?

Just under seven years ago, just as I was preparing for my 'A' level exams and looking forward to shipping myself off to University, I had no idea that the care I had received throughout my life from my mother would have to be reciprocated. At about 11am on May 27th 1999, my mother had a sub arachnoid brain haemorrhage. I learnt later that a stroke is anything which causes a disruption in the supply of blood to the brain, so this was effectively a 'stroke'. The sub arachnoid part meant that the extensive bleeding caused by the haemorrhage was under the skull, such that the surgeon would have to create an ad hoc 'trapdoor' whilst he was operating on it. The operation lasted eight hours. A couple of days later she had an expected secondary stroke, but she had had an artificial balloon heart installed which ensured the blood kept pumping away. Luckily, she was a relatively young and active person, and the doctor was optimistic about her recovery. I think to a lot of people's surprise, she managed a very rapid physical recovery - although she may have overestimated this by attempting to return to her full-time fast-paced job a mere six months after suffering the haemorrhage. It was quickly evident that she would not be able to work for some time, if ever. This I believe compounded her still fragile mental state, and she found it hard to recover from such a setback. It sounds cheesy, but that was until she started with The Stroke Association (www.stroke.org.uk or www.stroke.org). They offered her critically important advice on how to cope with her ordeal, companionship in the loneliest time of her life and suggested ways in which she could change her new life to turn positives out of the situation. She is due to graduate from Open University at the top of her class this summer.

Needless to say I owe a lot to this organisation, and only by being forced to learn about strokes, did I start to appreciate the huge imbalance that is current between the funding for this charity and others of similar stature.

I think it's time for some more bullet pointed facts...

Every year, over 150,000 people in the UK suffer from a stroke. That's one every three minutes.
A stroke is the third most common cause of death in the UK.
It is also the most common form of severe disability.
More than three times as many women die from stroke than breast cancer in the UK.
Unacceptable inadequacies in stroke care and research exist. For every £50 spent on cancer research and £20 on heart disease research, only £1 is spent on stroke research.

The Stroke Association is the only national charity solely concerned with helping everyone affected by stroke. They are working to create a world where there are fewer strokes and all those touched by stroke get the help they need.

And I want to help their cause.

I am aiming to fundraise £10,000 for this charity over the next 6 months, I will of course make it easy for all those who read this blog to donate to the cause, and I will do my best to keep a running total of how much has been raised so far.

I thank you for not getting bored and disappearing to watch the World Cup, and implore you to donate what you can now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now.

Please visit http://www.justgiving.com/everestdec2006 to donate to this worthy cause now.

Namaste!