New Year in Nepal Easter on Everest

The altimeter read 29,000ft, the Barometer -38 degrees. Thanks to engineering of Rolls-Royce, Boeing and in the comfort of a British Airways pressurised cabin, I was as high as Hillary and Tensing were when they stood on top of the world. On the flight to New York I’d just been feasting on my complimentary cold ‘all day breakfast’ and the thought of playing cricket at Gorak Shep was as far away as a Buddhist Monk thinking of the new Britney Spears video on the screen in front of me. But I soon found myself under the pressure which many men have recently encountered: desperately trying to find an alternative to the pressure of watching Mamma Mia! Stumbling across a documentary entitled Everest ER, I’d found my saving grace. Documentary following a team of volunteer doctors caring for the climbers and sherpas at Everest Base Camp in Nepal. This gripping series follows the lives of these doctors over the course of one Everest season. Perfect. I pressed play without even thinking and following a few exchanges and promises to Vi that I’d watch it manana manana, the headphones firmly went on and felt a huge sense of excitement watching a documentary about where I’d be attempting a world record in 2009!

The Everest Base Camp Medical Clinic was set up by Dr. Luanne Freer after visiting base camp in 2002 and realising the distinct lack of medical advice and care http://www.everester.org/ She now returns each year with other doctor volunteers to perform her selfless work and has treated more than 1,300 people since its launch and I’ve recently been told that they will be helping our on our Expedition attempt although not too much I hope! In her own words ‘I was looking for a way to combine my passion for the mountains with my desire to give back to the Sherpa people I had come to love; what better way than to start a clinic, in a tent, on a big hunk of moving ice’. I watched in complete silence as I witnessed people with aliments such as ‘Khumbu Cough’, a tickling cough that comes from dry cold air irritating the lungs causing one chap to break his ribs from coughing so violently, constant headaches, loss of appetite, sleepless nights, nausea (research has shown 25% to 50% of people arriving at Pheriche, which is 4,200 metres, will get some sort of AMS), broken legs and ankles and an hour later I wish I had sung-along in my airline seat to Pierce Bronson in lycra, singing Knowing Me Knowing You.

New York was a welcomed break as I’d recently had a bad relapse of my Ulcerative Colitis, the first in about five years and ended up back in hospital. All this coupled with the life of a stockbroker becoming like that of a dung beetle, constantly picking up things that were shite and worthless. Waving a giant finger at the Knicks game, eating a foot long hot dog coupled with a beer and a pretzel (the two came together, maybe the UK should cotton on and serve a pint with a huge pork scratching) was the highlight, as was walking the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset on the way back from Grimaldi’s http://www.grimaldis.com/, (highly recommended by Kiwi http://www.chrispalmereverest.blogspot.com/ as the best pizza’s in New York...and I wasn’t disappointed!) but as I sat outside the changing rooms for my third hour in the shoe section of Bloomingdales recovering from yet another steak which I’m sure was still moving when devoured, I realised that an all American diet was not tantamount to giving myself the best shot at becoming a record breaker.

Coming back to Blightly was a shock to the system. My first ‘personal’ training session at the gym was something only comparable to the pain Mel Gibson felt in the penultimate scene in Braveheart on the rack and after being on the cross-trainer, the bike and the treadmill over the course of an hour, I must have looked similar to someone giving birth to a child. These sessions have continued on a weekly basis and I pretty sure at various points I’ve insulted him, his mother and reincarnated his grandmother just to throw an insult at her for good measure. This however pales into insignificance to what some of the other lads were doing and reading through our captain’s blog http://www.gleneverest.blogspot.com/ you can get an insight into what he and 11 of the lads did lining up for the Grim Challenge to see the type of commitment that is being driven into this expedition – running, wading, and crawling through 8 miles off off-road countryside. If this wasn’t hard tough enough, it also happened to be the coldest day of the year. I’d advise reading Glen’s blog amongst the other nutters who entered this for the full experience of crawling through mud whilst ‘dodging a few ice blocks here and there’.

On the training side, I’m still yet to make my debut and whilst I’ve had a few setbacks with my health this year, there are no excuses in the new year. Monday nights are now being run by Kiwi involving laps of Albert Bridge and Chelsea Bridge with sprint training in between and then Kirt http://www.kirtblogging.blogspot.com/ and Tom http://www.tommyoneverest.blogspot.com/ leading the Trim Trails on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings involving a number of fitness exercises that, and I quote an anonymous source here ‘I’d like to see Bear Grylls trying to do this shit...’ (Bear was incidentally jet skiing in the Antarctic having just summated an unclimbed peak in -25oC temperatures) No pain, no gain. Not trying to come across as too much of a training Scrooge before Christmas, I’ve sure I will be visited by the three Ghosts of the Everest Test and I fear the Ghost of Training Yet to Come the most...!

My personal highlight of the year has to be putting my pads back on and getting back into the nets, which occurred a couple of weeks ago at Lords following by far one of the most entertaining morning of The Everest Test thus far. Inspired by the organisers, a PR stunt in the heart of London tourists’ spots to raise awareness brought traffic, people and the pigeons of Trafalgar square to a standstill. The idea was to perform what is referred to as a ‘freeze mob’, whereby the team dressed in white and with various props (ski goggles, tennis rackets as crampons, ropes, sleeping bags and rucksacks for the trektators) all walked into an densely busy placed, the trektators would then applaud to welcome the team onto the pitch, Wes would then bowl what was an imaginary ball, David Kirtley then pushed inexplicably at the slightly wide delivery which was caught superbly at fine leg...and then everyone freeze in that position for three minutes.
My morning like many other who turned up to prepare at the Millennium London Eye has started in a blurred haze, the previous night having been spent in the LSE student Union following our work Christmas party. Whilst requesting ‘Reach’ by S Club 7 dressed in black tie did draw attention to myself, a few hours later I would never have predicted that Parliament Square would have been brought to a standstill with every sole turning their cameras away from Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament and onto members of the Everest Test ‘frozen’ in position, having just appealed for a wicket being caught at short leg! I stood at watch in amazement and hundreds of people crowded round to take pictures and ask what was going on. Whilst some of the players performed their roles admirably, Haydn and Jamo looked like they were trying to impersonate someone doing a star jump or having just been kicked in the balls and disappearing into orbit.

Best comeback line I’ve heard since General Peter Cosgrove has been undisputedly awarded to Wes for his role outside Buckingham Palace. If I ever get interview for Goldman Sachs (still in existence at time of writing) and the panel asked me to describe a moment where I have been challenged and how did you respond, I would have to coin this as my own. Having avoided a few vans worth of police cars at Parliament Square, Buckingham Palace with the flag flying high at mask was going to be trickier situation as 15 people marched boldly in white towards the palace. As the Trektators cheering signified the start of the ‘match’, Wes was confronted by a policeman who assured him that the freeze mob wasn’t going to happen on ‘his watch’....Queue the classic get out of jail card free response from Wes of ‘But we’re doing this to raise awareness of the Charity’. This usually gives you access to any cornerstone of mother England, but not for this policeman defending the Queen. Just about the play his trump card and smugly laying down on the table what in poker terms he felt was a flush having just bet the ranch, raising an eyebrow responded ‘Well then...which charity?’ Out comes the Royal Flush from Wes with a simple parry of ‘The Prince’s Trust’. Unequivocal silence from the Bobby as David Kirtley was again caught inexplicably pushing at an imaginary full pitch ball outside off and Haydn now performing some form of John Travolta move erplacing his now infamous starjump appeal. If this wasn’t good enough I was fortunate to witness a Geordie wearing a Newcastle football shirt with Number 9 ‘God’ on the back, walk past Wes with his baby in a pram, high-fived him whilst he was frozen mid appeal and chuckled to himself ‘I love the English’. I don’t even think anyone had noticed the changing of the guard going on behind us.




One more freeze mob at Trafalgar Square which scattered the pigeons with the volume of the appeal and stole Nelson’s limelight and after three more minutes, it was off to Lords for an update on the expedition and two things I had feared most over the last few months: getting back into the nets after shattering my thumb and the dreaded bleep test*. Twelve hours earlier I had been ‘Climbing every Mountain’ and Reach for the Stars’ with various other students in the LSE union bar looking like a complete idiot, but I feared this had been ill preparation for a bleep and more humiliation was to come. Kirt soon became some kind of sadistic torturer, a side I hadn’t seen to him yet and having firstly announced that he’d forgotten the bleep test causing euphoric sighs across other members who were in the similar hungover state, then proceeded to find it and take great glee and pleasure in clapping his hands in place of the bleeps whilst chuckling to himself, as my heart raced to a level similar to that of a grand national winner. I clocked in at respectable 11.2. The work done with Jamie the trainer had obviously paid dividends and began to feel some guilt about the various insults I’d thrown at his family at my previous training session.

*(The test involves running continuously between two points that are 20 m apart. These runs are synchronized with a pre-recorded audio tape or CD, which plays beeps at set intervals. As the test proceeds, the interval between each successive beep reduces, forcing the athlete to increase velocity over the course of the test, until it is impossible to keep in sync with the recording, i.e collapse screaming ‘medic’ or ‘stretcher bearer’)

At the meeting there were various announcements, one being the sad news that Charlie Brewer had to pull out for medical reasons. He has been suffering from similar symptoms to that of ME and Chronic Fatigue for nearly a year now and has also been unable to work for over six months. Charlie is a huge cricket fanatic and has dedicated a huge amount of his time to the Maladroits CC http://www.maladroits.com/ which he is now captain of and runs the day to day logistics of the team. He is a lifelong friend who I have travelled to as far as the West Indies and Sri Lanka to watch England play cricket whilst losing various games of golf on the way! Despite being the one person I would love to see up at Base Camp and I know this is one thing he would absolutely loathe to miss out on, he has selfishly given up his place and having recently been diagnosed with Lymes Disease, I wish him well and a speedy recovery.

It was also announced that there is a change to one of the charities that we are raising and can now inform you that coupled with the Himalayan Trust http://www.himalayantrust.co.uk/ we will now be raising funds for the Lords Taverners http://www.lordstaverners.org/ founded in and based upon cricket, that helps young people, particularly those with social, environmental, physical or learning disadvantages, to enjoy cricket and other sporting and leisure activities and there was unanimous agreement amongst the meeting that this was the right decision to change at the moment of the expedition. I had the opportunity to update the teams on progress with Surrey Cricket Club who are now are Official Cricket Partners and they have now generously given us access to their net facilities once a week, increased our media exposure, helped us get involved with some of the Lambeth School they are affiliated with which will hopefully culminate in a link with some of the Nepalese schools and also a moment that I will take to the grave ... a rematch of the Hillary v Tenzing epic on the hollowed turf of the Oval during the lunchtime interval of either the Ashes Test or the One dayer! A huge thanks at this moment goes once again to George Foster and Paul Sheldon at the Oval and to Paul Farrant at JM Finn http://www.jmfinn.com/ for all there help thus far.

‘Are you sure you don’t want a helmet mate?’ was how I was greeted ten minutes later by the infectiously competitive Chris Palmer, I might add also my own teammate, as I strolled to the crease in the nets from a six month absence. ‘Never worn one, never will’ was my overly-cocky response. I continued down to the far end, knowing what was coming and sure enough a few balls later I ducked into what I thought was a bouncer. In a moment similar to Chris Read being caught like a rabbit in the headlights by a Chris Cairns slower delivery, the short pitched ball hit me somewhere on my lower arm as I took my eye off the ball. The ‘bouncer’ would have struggled to bounce a midget on stilts. Welcome back Charlie. Watching David Kirtley caressing yet another glorious drive into the side netting next o me was something to behold and it will be fantastic to have him as part of Hillary CC at the Shep. I heard a couple of the Tenzing boys mumour ‘Lets hope he gets bloody light headed on match day!’ as they glimpsed the Cardiff Captain for the first time. It was good to see who we were up against as I’d missed the ten wicket drumming earlier in the season at the hands of the auld enemy and on the day of the Everest Test, I believe the outcome will be an entirely different story!!

Completely separately, I will be spending New Year in Nepal with my family celebrating my father’s 70th. Kirt and Cuzza will coincidently be out there at the same time, so I’m sure a few beers will be shared in the Yak and Yeti until the wee hours of the morning before heading off to Tiger Tops in the New Year. It will be incredible to return to the foothills of the Himalayas once again and visit Kathmandu and the much mooted Emerald Valley, considered to be among the most beautiful places in the world before returning for the world record attempt April. It will certainly be interesting to see what the Nepalese have in mind for New Year’s Eve – I doubt my Banana Man outfit I wore the year before would go down too well!




For those who had read my next installement of War and Peace and the Everest Test, may I Wish you all a very Merry Christmas and for those involved in the Everest Test, a record-breaking New Year in 2009!!