2 Poles, 7 Summits, 13 Ironman's and 196 Countries

Elle and I reached 6000m and 6700m respectively and are back down safe and sound though Elle has left a long trail of markings. It has been an amazing, unforgettable life experience. 1:00pm 16th January 2010 (Summit Attempt): I had been walking now since 6:00am the temperature had warmed from the -20C of when we woke. Our group of 13 people who had set out that morning was now down to only 7, with many succumbing to tiredness and the effects of altitude. The ground was covered in snow so I was wearing crampons for the first time, putting on the crampons was fantastic and had added to my strength over the last 5 hours, things felt good. Approaching the end of the final traverse something started to go wrong, I was probably the only person in the group who had managed to make it this high with none of the traditional affects of altitude, at 6700m I still did not have a headache, nausea and I definitely had not lost my appetite. Though now things started to become hazy, the continu...

It has been about 5 days since we left Mendoza, now Elle and I sit in Base camp at 4300 metres. The road here was long, from Confluencia the camp below we climber from 3400 metres in a 10 hour day that saw walking through 50-60km/hr winds across open plains then up scree hills. Reaching base camp was a achievement in itself. Base camp is a fascinating tent city, now we sit in a satellite Internet cafe, which draw is artificial grass and a fake palm tree. Avalanches can be heard through the day and night, it strangely warm with the sun out but drops to -15C at night. An acclimatisation climb took us to 5000m yesterday to our next camp and open area on a cliff. Vegetation went a long time ago. Last night, following the climb to camp Canada was the worst storm I have ever been in, winds were 93km/hr folded in half, so midway through the night we were out hedging it up with rocks and trying to find our socks, which were down the valley. Two great quotes came from the Spanish s...

Our bus to Mendoza was a beautiful drive through the Andes mountains, spectacular but more so knowing that no matter how big a mountain we saw was, we were going to climb one that was bigger. Another scary thing was even at an altitude of a little over 3000m the landscape was sparse and covered in scree, an environment normally reserved for much higher. Excitement was building, getting of the bus we saw a girl carrying so much gear it made us look light weight, something I was sure we would never see. Chatting to her, she had just come from Mount Vinson, Antarctica's highest mountain, she had also done Kilimanjaro and as her first mountain in her summits expedition she had climbed Everest. Holy shit. It looks like there might be some interesting company. What are we doing?? Looking at the itinerary 5th January is an airport transfer day, it is the 2nd today so at least we have three days to prepare for that. Mendoza is a beautiful little city, a woeful selection of cam...

Some places in the world just sound cool, a legend surrounds them, Barry Manilow writes a song about its beach....can't have everything. Arriving into the desolate airport, leaving there revealed a buzz, life, this was a place of excitement. Rio have also learnt that the tourist can pay pretty much anything at certain times. The hostel, Mellow Yellow, was at 5 star hotel prices, the 5 star hotels were at private island prices. The city was really busy, for the first full day up to the Jesus statue where it was a cloudy accept for a small piece of blue sky above Christ, coming closer the sky opened up, once at the top the cloud had blown away and the sky was blue. That is how to see a statue. Below beautiful Rio was revealed. The search for food continued, Elle had also read so much about muggings that there was no doubt we would be a victim. This reading led to the now infamous red robber incident. 11:00pm after an average meal, walking home, I pulled the taxi up to...