On October 10th I travel to Kilimanjaro, enduring 8 hours of Ethiopian Airlines' lovely in-flight food and navigational offerings, then after a nights sleep I start to climb Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in the world and the highest point in Africa.

Over the course of a week I'll reach an altitude of 5,896m and sleep in a small tent in temperatures as low minus 20 degrees Celsius.

 

The final push to the summit will start close to midnight in temperatures way below zero and with the air so thin that just breathing is a challenge, let alone actually walking under a headtorch for that last 12 hour push.

Training is underway and just this Summer I've been joined by my lovely wife Trish to tak on all 3 of the UK peaks, Ben Nevis (the Carn Mor Dearg Arete route), Snowdon (along with Glyder Fach) and also Scafell Pike (along with Helvellyn), we've covered nearly 500 miles of Mountain and Moor hikes this year alone but we have nowhere in England that comes anywhere close to the altitudes we'll be going to, Over 3 and a half miles up the air will be so thin and temperature so low that this really will be a huge challenge.  Then I have to make it back down, any hiker will tell you that downhill is no picnic.

 

I'm doing this for Parkinson's UK, a fantastic UK based charity helping families affected by this disease and working towards a much needed cure.

While all money raised is sent directly to Parkinson's UK, a portion of your donations and money raised through our events will be used by Parkinson's UK to fund the event, the total raised in this event is far in excess of the expence raised.