We could see base camp below us, and my breathing was becoming more and more excited. I felt as though an entire lifetime had passed since I had last been here.The tents shimmered in the sun as we hur...
Trucker and I did quite a bit of busking together on our guitars, doing the rounds at various Bristol hot spots.This included the local old people’s home, where I remember innocently singing the lyric...
There has been one further element to success, and that is its underlying message. I believe it is actually the biggest factor.If you think about it, at heart, there is such a strong link between sur...
There had always been this part of me that had never really believed that I could make it.Ever since that hospital bed and my broken back, a little part of me, deep down, had thought it was all sheer...
The thing about a ‘comfort zone’ is that it sounds, well, just too comfortable – and when you are too comfortable you lose your edge. That’s why I call it a comfort pit, because a pit is somewhere you...
The second element to why the show has worked is undoubtedly my team.And guess what? I am not alone out there.I work with a truly brilliant, small tight-knit crew. Four or five guys. Heroes to a man.T...
The school regime refused to make it easy for us on the dress side of things, and it dictated that even if we wanted to walk into the neighboring town of Windsor, then we had to wear a blazer and tie....
The rope I was dangling off wasn’t designed for a long impact fall like mine.It was lightweight, thin rope that got replaced every few days as the ice, on the move, tore it from its anchor point. The...
The next night was New Year’s Eve, and I made a secret plan with Shara to meet her outside the back door on the stroke of midnight.Let’s take a walk, I suggested.Sure. It’s midnight, minus five degree...
The less you see of your toxic friends and the more you see of your enthusiastic friends, the better you will feel about yourself, and the better you will become. So spend your days in the company of...
That New Year I was invited to stay with one of my old school buddies, Sam Sykes, at his house on the far northwestern coast of Sutherland, in Scotland.It is as wild and rugged a place as anywhere on...
Psalm 121 says:Good person to have on side, I always figure.Now, some of you will say, hey, I don’t need this Christian stuff. And I hear you. But it is easy to be cynical when all is going your way....
Our next test weekend was in a particularly hellish area of the Welsh mountains--remote, godforsaken, and full of even more boggy, ankle-twisting moon grass.The area became known affectionately by the...
Meals were often eaten standing up, and I wasn’t quite sure why they had bothered to issue us with beds, we got to see them so little.
Many people find it hard to understand what it is about a mountain that draws men and women to risk their lives on her freezing, icy faces--all for a chance at that single, solitary moment on the top....
It is always strange looking back at a time that has had such a profound impact on one’s life. And when it comes to Everest, I see two very clear things: friendships that were forged in a tough crucib...
If I had to sum up what happened on that journey for me, from the hospital bed to the summit of the world, I tend to think of it as a stumbling journey.Of losing my confidence and my strength--then re...
Consider the billionaire who flies into the South Pole for an hour to ‘experience’ it, compared to the man who has toiled, sweated and struggled across hundreds and hundreds of miles of ice, dragging...
By the way, it is also good to know that faith isn’t one-sided. As Christ said: ‘I have come to seek and save.’He is out looking for us, too.So be brave and let Him do his side of the bargain.
Before I climbed Everest, I saved up to make an attempt on a peak called Ama Dablam, one of the classic and more technically difficult climbs in the higher Himalayas. For many of the weeks I was there...