It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves
Being inspired by the achievements of Sir Edmund Hillary having read his remarkable autobiography ‘View From The Summit’ recounting the first man ever to set foot on Everest in his 1953 landmark expedition, coupled with the threat of the organisers of having to knock in a cricket back for our attempt to break the Guinness Book of Records for the highest game of sport ever played - a game of 20Twenty Cricket at Base Camp of Everest - I decided it was finally time to conquer a first for myself...the challenge of setting up my own blog!
The first question you will no doubt ask is why have I decided to play a game of cricket, albeit at twice the altitude that FIFA allow professional footballers to play due to health reasons, on the highest plateau on earth? Without plagiarizing Mallory’s answer ‘Because it is there’, I will endeavour to give some background to how I became fortunate, or rather foolish enough to be invited on this incredible challenge and also what exactly The Everest Test http://www.theeveresttest.com/ is all about!
Having once again travelled to the shores of the West Indies to watch cricket, this time in April 2007 for the Cricket World Cup, I had just witnessed one of the classic matches between England and the West Indies, which was in fact the stage for one of the game’s greats, Brian Lara, to bow out of international cricket. Although run out for 18, he received a resounding ‘Yes!’ to the question posed to his beloved crowd of ‘Did I entertain?’ in his post match interview. Fortunate enough to shake his hand on his lap of honour, I believed it couldn’t get much better and settled in for the evening for more ‘Carib’ beers with my university cricket aficionados James Carrington http://jconeverest.blogspot.com/ and Charlie Brewer. Two other cricketing fanatics we had randomly met in the matches beforehand, who had quit their jobs and been following all the games across the islands were Alan Curr http://alaneverest.blogspot.com/ and Jonathan Hill http://jrvhill.blogspot.com/ and they joined us without having to twist their arm to much.
Following the usual debate about whether the illustrious Maladroits CC http://www.maladroits.co.uk/ were indeed a superior village cricket side than the Drovers CC http://www.droverscc.com/ (when we all initially met, it took us a few hours to relaise that we had already done battle on the green cricket fields of Surrey the summer before, and won) and whether Stuart Broad was the future of English fast bowling or batting, I was silenced by the question posed by Alan of ‘Ever wondered what it would be like to play cricket at 17,000 feet at Base Camp of Everest?’. We had migrated from Carib Beers to Margaritas at this point and Cuzza and Hillsy (as they are affectionately known) had in fact just done a reverse bungee on a belly full of beer, so merely dismissed this insane idea as inebriating ranting. I watched them both re-in-act one of Michael Vaughan’s sixes from earlier whilst falling off their bar stool and then continue on their never ending debate about who was the greatest English cricket captain of all time.... Nothing more of the conversation was ever mentioned.
A year later and having lost the Magners Cup (an annual charity cricket match which has over the years raised funds for Alzheimer’s, the Primary Club and Ulcerative Colitis from which I have suffered from for 6 years) to the Drovers in a tightly fought contest involving the Barmy Army and the Lashings – Tino Best just happened to take a hat-trick for the Drovers in the final – I found myself sat with thirty or so other insane minded people on a cold snowy April Sunday morning in the Duck Pub in Battersea and first met the brains behind this idea and the expedition leaders, Richard Kirtley-Wright http://kirtblogging.blogspot.com/, Gareth Wesley http://gareth-wesley.blogspot.com/ and Charlie Campbell. Coffee was served, and much needed, but more sobering were the sentences mentioned such as ‘we will be attempting to competitively play sport with only 66% of the oxygen at sea level’...It will feel like ‘breathing though and straw’...You will be pushing the mental and physical boundaries of conventional sport to officially set a world record for the highest altitude of field sport at 17,000 feet, at Base Camp of Everest’. Simple, easy, a walk in the park...if you were a seasoned cricketing mountaineering Sherpa, attributes of which I could debatably claim none of. This was one of those once in a lifetime opportunities....and I had already begun to fill in my application.
Adventurers the world over have been inspired by the achievements of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and this expedition is no different. With over 50 people now enrolled on the expedition which includes 30 players divided into two teams, aptly named Hillary and Tenzing to which an affiliation for each player now runs deeper than just an identity, the invaluable ‘Trekatators’ consisting of medical staff, cameramen and some of the most enthusiastic people I have ever encountered, we will all each be raising a minimum of £1,500 in an attempt to break the world record for the highest altitude of field sport ever played, it is indeed awe-inspiring and will be the most difficult challenge I have taken on in my life.
Richard Kirtley-Wright has been up to the plateau where we hope to break to record at Gorak Shep www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorakshep and like Sir Edmund himself, has a great affection for the Sherpas who without their help we would not be able make this attempt at the record. After his accent in 1953 Hillary founded the Himalayan Trust, http://www.himalayantrust.co.uk/ a non-profit dedicated
to bettering the lives of the Sherpas. The Himalayan Trust has helped to create a modicum of wealth, health, and overall prosperity in this once desperately impoverished mountain area and this is one of the two charities that we will be raising funds for and a truly worthy cause. To quote Sir Edmund Hillary:
I first visited the Khumbu area on the south side of Everest in 1951 and developed a warm respect and affection for the Sherpa people who lived there. Their life was a tough and hardy one but they had a most vigorous sense of humour. It was impossible not to like their cheerfullnes and generosity.
Over the next ten years, I developed many Sherpa friends and became of the things they lacked in their rugged existence - no schooling for their children and no medical treatment for the ill. I often felt there was much we could do to help them but never got beyond the stage of talking and dreaming.
The first question you will no doubt ask is why have I decided to play a game of cricket, albeit at twice the altitude that FIFA allow professional footballers to play due to health reasons, on the highest plateau on earth? Without plagiarizing Mallory’s answer ‘Because it is there’, I will endeavour to give some background to how I became fortunate, or rather foolish enough to be invited on this incredible challenge and also what exactly The Everest Test http://www.theeveresttest.com/ is all about!
Having once again travelled to the shores of the West Indies to watch cricket, this time in April 2007 for the Cricket World Cup, I had just witnessed one of the classic matches between England and the West Indies, which was in fact the stage for one of the game’s greats, Brian Lara, to bow out of international cricket. Although run out for 18, he received a resounding ‘Yes!’ to the question posed to his beloved crowd of ‘Did I entertain?’ in his post match interview. Fortunate enough to shake his hand on his lap of honour, I believed it couldn’t get much better and settled in for the evening for more ‘Carib’ beers with my university cricket aficionados James Carrington http://jconeverest.blogspot.com/ and Charlie Brewer. Two other cricketing fanatics we had randomly met in the matches beforehand, who had quit their jobs and been following all the games across the islands were Alan Curr http://alaneverest.blogspot.com/ and Jonathan Hill http://jrvhill.blogspot.com/ and they joined us without having to twist their arm to much.
Following the usual debate about whether the illustrious Maladroits CC http://www.maladroits.co.uk/ were indeed a superior village cricket side than the Drovers CC http://www.droverscc.com/ (when we all initially met, it took us a few hours to relaise that we had already done battle on the green cricket fields of Surrey the summer before, and won) and whether Stuart Broad was the future of English fast bowling or batting, I was silenced by the question posed by Alan of ‘Ever wondered what it would be like to play cricket at 17,000 feet at Base Camp of Everest?’. We had migrated from Carib Beers to Margaritas at this point and Cuzza and Hillsy (as they are affectionately known) had in fact just done a reverse bungee on a belly full of beer, so merely dismissed this insane idea as inebriating ranting. I watched them both re-in-act one of Michael Vaughan’s sixes from earlier whilst falling off their bar stool and then continue on their never ending debate about who was the greatest English cricket captain of all time.... Nothing more of the conversation was ever mentioned.
A year later and having lost the Magners Cup (an annual charity cricket match which has over the years raised funds for Alzheimer’s, the Primary Club and Ulcerative Colitis from which I have suffered from for 6 years) to the Drovers in a tightly fought contest involving the Barmy Army and the Lashings – Tino Best just happened to take a hat-trick for the Drovers in the final – I found myself sat with thirty or so other insane minded people on a cold snowy April Sunday morning in the Duck Pub in Battersea and first met the brains behind this idea and the expedition leaders, Richard Kirtley-Wright http://kirtblogging.blogspot.com/, Gareth Wesley http://gareth-wesley.blogspot.com/ and Charlie Campbell. Coffee was served, and much needed, but more sobering were the sentences mentioned such as ‘we will be attempting to competitively play sport with only 66% of the oxygen at sea level’...It will feel like ‘breathing though and straw’...You will be pushing the mental and physical boundaries of conventional sport to officially set a world record for the highest altitude of field sport at 17,000 feet, at Base Camp of Everest’. Simple, easy, a walk in the park...if you were a seasoned cricketing mountaineering Sherpa, attributes of which I could debatably claim none of. This was one of those once in a lifetime opportunities....and I had already begun to fill in my application.
Adventurers the world over have been inspired by the achievements of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and this expedition is no different. With over 50 people now enrolled on the expedition which includes 30 players divided into two teams, aptly named Hillary and Tenzing to which an affiliation for each player now runs deeper than just an identity, the invaluable ‘Trekatators’ consisting of medical staff, cameramen and some of the most enthusiastic people I have ever encountered, we will all each be raising a minimum of £1,500 in an attempt to break the world record for the highest altitude of field sport ever played, it is indeed awe-inspiring and will be the most difficult challenge I have taken on in my life.
Richard Kirtley-Wright has been up to the plateau where we hope to break to record at Gorak Shep www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorakshep and like Sir Edmund himself, has a great affection for the Sherpas who without their help we would not be able make this attempt at the record. After his accent in 1953 Hillary founded the Himalayan Trust, http://www.himalayantrust.co.uk/ a non-profit dedicated
to bettering the lives of the Sherpas. The Himalayan Trust has helped to create a modicum of wealth, health, and overall prosperity in this once desperately impoverished mountain area and this is one of the two charities that we will be raising funds for and a truly worthy cause. To quote Sir Edmund Hillary:I first visited the Khumbu area on the south side of Everest in 1951 and developed a warm respect and affection for the Sherpa people who lived there. Their life was a tough and hardy one but they had a most vigorous sense of humour. It was impossible not to like their cheerfullnes and generosity.
Over the next ten years, I developed many Sherpa friends and became of the things they lacked in their rugged existence - no schooling for their children and no medical treatment for the ill. I often felt there was much we could do to help them but never got beyond the stage of talking and dreaming.
The second charity which we will be raising funds for is Sports Relief http://www.sportrelief.com/ All the money raised through Sports Relief will be spent by Comic Relief to change countless lives for the better at home in the UK and across the world’s poorest countries. So whilst many adventurers and expeditions have trodden similar paths we hope to tread in April 2009 for a number of different reasons, our sole aim is to raise as many funds as humanly possible for these fantastic charities and your support for both this expedition, The Himalayan Trust and Sports Relief is greatly appreciated. A win for Team Hillary would be a bonus!
A phenomenal amount of work and unprecedented effort has been put into this expedition and so much has already happened. The Trektators organised an incredible launch party at the Collection in South Kensington, raising over £3000 and was attended by over 200 thirsty souls, including Neil Laughton (www.neillaughton.com/who) a living legend in his own right who has climbed Everest among other incredible feats. The two teams are also represented in pretty much every 10km run, half marathons, Marathons (Cuzza and his sister Helen just completed the Berlin Marathon – an incredible achievement in itself), triathlons and the weekend in February is already pencilled in to attempt the Three Peaks Challenge (Ben Nevis, 4,408 feet [1,344 meters]), in England (Scafell Pike, 3,205 feet [977 meters]), and in Wales (Snowdon, 3,560 feet [1,090 meters]) which if all placed on top of each other, still falls nearly 6000ft short of our intended height to play cricket!
It obviously goes without saying that fitness is paramount to the success of this expedition. Players need to be ready for two varying elements of the trip, the 9 day trek to the plateau, and then playing the match at 5165m. The first element requires to be walking fit, both legs and upper body, to carry the expedition kit in packs etc and the second element is the match with just 66% oxygen the players would have at sea level. Whist a number of 45 min runs per week are now a staple pastime, my fitness level has recently taken a hit as I was hospitalised for a couple of days with my ulcerative colitis and diagnosed with anaemia, but a rather expensive gym membership purchase leaves me with no excuses left and I promise to be seen at the Trim Trail at Battersea Park on Wednesdays and Saturday mornings (training organised by the triathlon running Sharland brothers and Kirt) before someone sees a pig fly....
I have in fact previously reached the dizzy heights of 17,582ft [5260 metres] climbing up to the Tanglangla pass whilst visiting India. It is the second highest pass in the world, so it will be a welcomed return to the picturesque and striking views that only the Himalayan mountains can offer...The difference this time round being I’m no longer an eighteen year old whipper snapper! I might add that the photo next to the Tanglangla sign is of one of me with ginger hair when a sun-in dye moment went wrong and my parents still ‘tut-tut’ at the photo of me on their mantle-piece proudly talking to the Queen about our trip to India when she visited Charterhouse
The captive picture is myself and her laughing recounting my story of the landing at Leh airstrip, which I personally thought was petrifying as I’m sure we capsized a fisherman on the decent in to land having just missed a moutain lake by inches....I was wrong. At the first official Everest Test meeting, Kirt and Wes described landing on the Lukla Airport where we will touch down to make our record breaking attempt and where most people start their trek on Everest. If my parents, or anyone who is scarred of flying is reading this, probably best to skip to the next paragraph. Their description was as follows:
A phenomenal amount of work and unprecedented effort has been put into this expedition and so much has already happened. The Trektators organised an incredible launch party at the Collection in South Kensington, raising over £3000 and was attended by over 200 thirsty souls, including Neil Laughton (www.neillaughton.com/who) a living legend in his own right who has climbed Everest among other incredible feats. The two teams are also represented in pretty much every 10km run, half marathons, Marathons (Cuzza and his sister Helen just completed the Berlin Marathon – an incredible achievement in itself), triathlons and the weekend in February is already pencilled in to attempt the Three Peaks Challenge (Ben Nevis, 4,408 feet [1,344 meters]), in England (Scafell Pike, 3,205 feet [977 meters]), and in Wales (Snowdon, 3,560 feet [1,090 meters]) which if all placed on top of each other, still falls nearly 6000ft short of our intended height to play cricket!
It obviously goes without saying that fitness is paramount to the success of this expedition. Players need to be ready for two varying elements of the trip, the 9 day trek to the plateau, and then playing the match at 5165m. The first element requires to be walking fit, both legs and upper body, to carry the expedition kit in packs etc and the second element is the match with just 66% oxygen the players would have at sea level. Whist a number of 45 min runs per week are now a staple pastime, my fitness level has recently taken a hit as I was hospitalised for a couple of days with my ulcerative colitis and diagnosed with anaemia, but a rather expensive gym membership purchase leaves me with no excuses left and I promise to be seen at the Trim Trail at Battersea Park on Wednesdays and Saturday mornings (training organised by the triathlon running Sharland brothers and Kirt) before someone sees a pig fly....
I have in fact previously reached the dizzy heights of 17,582ft [5260 metres] climbing up to the Tanglangla pass whilst visiting India. It is the second highest pass in the world, so it will be a welcomed return to the picturesque and striking views that only the Himalayan mountains can offer...The difference this time round being I’m no longer an eighteen year old whipper snapper! I might add that the photo next to the Tanglangla sign is of one of me with ginger hair when a sun-in dye moment went wrong and my parents still ‘tut-tut’ at the photo of me on their mantle-piece proudly talking to the Queen about our trip to India when she visited Charterhouse
The captive picture is myself and her laughing recounting my story of the landing at Leh airstrip, which I personally thought was petrifying as I’m sure we capsized a fisherman on the decent in to land having just missed a moutain lake by inches....I was wrong. At the first official Everest Test meeting, Kirt and Wes described landing on the Lukla Airport where we will touch down to make our record breaking attempt and where most people start their trek on Everest. If my parents, or anyone who is scarred of flying is reading this, probably best to skip to the next paragraph. Their description was as follows:
Voted as one of the world’s most dangerous airports, the width is 20m and the runway incline is a staggering 12% and there is about a 700-metre (2,000 ft) angled drop at the end of the runway to the valley far below. When you take off, you go downhill and then the runway just disappears into the valley down below. If you don't get enough speed, you drop until you get lift and then hopefully get back up again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukla_Airport
My trip to India was also the first time I encountered the extremes of breathing at such altitude and remember my friend and I taking on the Sherpas (the bet was who made who tea in the morning) to get to the top of a mountain pass. I figured that the slow conservative pig trail up the scree slope with the yaks would take hours and my more direct ‘short cut’ up the side of the scree, now infamous amongst friends, would be quicker. Half way I we realised how wrong we were and breaking into a fit of laughter, we then had to sit back to back for over half an hour not to catch each other eye just to get our breath back as we could hardy breath and were gasping for air – five hours later we made it to our camp and humble pie was firmly eaten, much to the amusement and glee of the sherpas in the morning!
My trip to India was also the first time I encountered the extremes of breathing at such altitude and remember my friend and I taking on the Sherpas (the bet was who made who tea in the morning) to get to the top of a mountain pass. I figured that the slow conservative pig trail up the scree slope with the yaks would take hours and my more direct ‘short cut’ up the side of the scree, now infamous amongst friends, would be quicker. Half way I we realised how wrong we were and breaking into a fit of laughter, we then had to sit back to back for over half an hour not to catch each other eye just to get our breath back as we could hardy breath and were gasping for air – five hours later we made it to our camp and humble pie was firmly eaten, much to the amusement and glee of the sherpas in the morning!
We did play a fantastic game of cricket agasint Leh CC at their ground at 11 975 ft and lesser mortals were collapsing before finishing an over! The most memorable highlight of the whole game was when we had to stop to let a sacred cow walked across the wicket as it was not allowed to be rushed, an interlude of about 20 minutes. A sequel to the successful 'Penguins Stopped Play' book by Harry Thompson perhaps...but a game of 20Twenty cricket 6,000 ft higher?!?! I’m only thankful my father concentrated on my batting in the back garden and will certainly not be looking for a couple of quick singles should I make it.
On the cricketing front, once up the hill I will be led by the ever enthusiastic Glen Lewis (very appropriate that a Kiwi is leading Team Hillary http://www.gleneverest.blogspot.com/ ) and the recently married animated Jules Staveley http://www.juleseveresttest.blogspot.com/ as Vice, both of whom would rather climb Everest itself in bare feet and a jock-strap than see Hillary lose on the day (the recent 10 wicket defeat at the hands of Tenzing was our poker-faced tactic, all a big rouse). I’ve sadly been unable to get involved on the cricketing front since shattering my thumb playing back in May and having had a couple of set back since, (my now girlfriend being to blame for pulling it out of its socket on our first date and breaking it again and what was nearly our last!!) I will be back in the nets soon since my eye watering cortisone steroid injections in my thumb joint seem to have helped the recovery.The fundraising side, I’m involved with a dedicated Committee made up of players, organisers and trektators organising a number of charity events both pre and post-expedition and many hours have been put into this already this year burning the candles late into the evening. As well as the fundraising, sponsorship of the event is obviously tantamount to the expedition and funds for the charities and information on the title sponsorship can be found at http://www.captivelab.com/ET/ET_Sponsorship_doc.ppt . Personal thanks must immediately go to my company Marketing Director Paul Farrant at JM Finn Stockbrokers, who has been invaluable with his time and helped get Surrey Cricket Club http://www.surreycricket.com/ on board as our official cricketing partner. Paul Sheldon, the CEO of Surrey CC has been incredible since and thanks must go to him and George Foster in offering us use of Surrey’s facilities, the Ashes Suite at the Oval for our post-expedition fundraising event and not forgetting a re-match of the Everest Test during one of the days at the Ashes during the lunch interval on the hallowed Oval turf itself!
As I mentioed at the start, more than four and a half decades after Hillary and Tenzing looked down from Everest’s 29,000 feet on the world below them, and gave them both well-deserved places in the history books, I have been incredibly fortunate enough to have been invited on aand be involved with this incredible challenge. I will endevour to keep you posted of my activities, the various events surrounding the Everest Test and progress leading up to and of course during this record breaking attempt. My personal fundraising page will be up and running shortly an I hope you will come back to check on progress by myself personally and the other members of the Everest Test Expedition.
http://www.theeveresttest.com/
‘It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves’
(Sir Edmund Hillary 20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008 )
Labels: Base Camp, Charles Bathurst-Norman, Cricket, Everest, Everest Test, Sir Edmund Hillary
posted by Charlie Bathurst-Norman at
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