Back in 2014 I attended a talk on trekking to Everest Base Camp with Ian Taylor from Iantaylortrekking and was really intrigued but thought -oh yeah! - that's for other people to do, but maybe not for me - not yet anyway! So, the seed was planted and inspite of myself it began to germinate. Now at this stage myself and a friend were going to walk a leg of the Camino de Santiago so we were out in the hills every Wednesday, rain, hail or snow. This meant that I had a certain level of fitness.
Then in 2015 I attended another talk delivered again by Ian Taylor on the aftermath of the earthquake in katmandu and the surrounding areas. The devastion was unreal and the task of clearing up and making houses/ homes safe seemed impossible. I don't know if it was the disaster and the plight of the Nepalese people that took hold but I knew I had to do something. iI had watched the video of Everest - A summit calling - (Ian Taylor's report of his epic trek to the top of Everest in 2008 and was blown away by it. The Himalayas were calling me too.
This year too we were doing another leg of the Camino, from St John de Pied de Port in the French Pyrennees to Burgos in Spain. The idea of crossing the Pyrennees seemed daunting and I knew that I had to step-up my training to prepare for it. In doing this, I attempted the 12peaks challenge in Kerry, Ireland - run by Kerry Climbing in June 2015 - and then climbed Corrauntoohil in August. Now, I knew I was ready.......
And so began in earnest in October having come home from the Camino to put a plan in place to trek to Everest Base Camp. Now, that seems like an eternity ago as the routine of training has taken hold. Each week I'm out in the mountains for 4-5 hours at least three days and light gym work in between. I know that getting out in the hills for me is my sanity too but it certainly thought me the weaknesses in my routine, my nutrition plan, my equipment and the clothing I had chosen - having researched at length and having had lengthy conversations with the travel company. There's no substitute for physically getting out there and testing everything yourself.
So here I am now and with another challenge having been asked by a group of friends who are involved with a wonderful organisation called Move4Parkinson's to raise some money for them so I have bitten the bullet and set up a facebook page called 'Trekking to Everest Base Camp for Move4Parkinson's and registered on Mycharity.ie to help to raise awareness for this cause.
I will keep you posted on further developments and post some pictures
Treasa
