Monday 21 July 2008

7pm Monday, and we're back down safely. What a climb though! We were so lucky with the weather all day, and met some fantastic people on the way up, at the summit, and on the way down (including a professional cellist from Amsterdam!). Overall it took us 9 hours, including over an hour at the summit for performance, lunch and photos... 4 hrs 35 on the way up, 3 hrs 20 on the way down.

It's fair to say we're all hurting somewhat. Clare says in particular that her shoulders hurt, her back hurts, her legs hurt and her feet hurt. I doubt any of us could say honestly that we do not share the same feelings!

We'd like to say a particular thank you to our two sherpas today - Ashley and Caroline. Ashley will be with us throughout; Caroline was just here for Ben Nevis (we'll have others at the other mountains); but they both made things so easy for us. Well, I say easy - speaking relatively of course! I don't think anyone would claim climbing a 1,343m mountain was easy at any time, let alone with a cello on your back...

We'll post some more photos of the first leg tomorrow hopefully.

Quote of the day: "Are we nearly there yet?" (James, after we'd been going for about 20 minutes...)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi & congratulations from the Rocky Mountains. I produce a classical music show on CBC Radio in Canada. We'd like to talk to you about your challenge. Could you send me a phone number and we will try to contact you on Wednesday - my email is catherine.mcclelland@cbc.ca
thanks. Do you have any audio from Ben Nevis? What did you play?

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the first summit from all at Aspire. The weather looks fantastic