Hugo Hunt, a 54 year old solicitor from Brighton, is on the mountain trail again. Accompanied by three friends, he is travelling to Nepal in October to climb a mountain in the Everest region of the Himalyas in order to raise money for under-privileged children in Nepal – and to test his abilities to rise to the challenge of climbing a mountain of 23,435 feet.

Hugo is not new to mountains. He has climbed in the Himalayas before, and in the Karakoram range in Pakistan, in Kazakstan, the Andes in Peru, and the Alps. Nor is he new to fundraising – in 2004 he raised £6,000 for the Brighton Youth Centre for his attempt on the Matterhorn. An attempt which was thwarted only by weather and excessive ice on the mountain.

He is more hopeful of success this time. ‘The weather should be quite stable, at this time of year’, he said, ‘and we have a clear twelve days at base camp within which to make our summit bid’.

It is a bigger challenge than the plucky lawyer has undertaken before. The mountain, Baruntse, is nine miles due south of the summit of Everest, in an especially barren part of the Himalayas. Breathing will be hard near the peak – there is much less air at that height. It will be cold, too. The climbers are likely to experience night time temperatures down to -25 degrees. Hugo already has a pair of down bootees in his luggage.

The hardest part of the climb will be near the summit. ‘Baruntse is having a bit of a laugh at our expense’ said Hugo, ‘just as we get to the hardest part physically, at about 7000 metres, it throws an ice cliff at us, to test us technically too. And I am facing a personal challenge: my team mates are a combined 78 years younger than me, and we can’t have these young whipper snappers beating the mature generation. I’ve got to keep ahead of them to show them that those of us who were clubbing in the swinging sixties are not the past-it old fogies they think we are’.

Nepal will be offering the expedition spectacular scenery, challenging climbing, and its famous hospitality. Hugo wants to give something back. So he is asking people to sponsor his attempt to climb Baruntse in aid of the charity Future For Nepal. FFN is a charity set up in 1994 by gap year student, Thomas Wells, who spent 8 months living in Nepal in 2003 and 2004. He was moved not only by the desperate poverty that exists there, but also depth of kindness and generosity of the Nepali people. The charity's aim is to provide children not only with a good education, but a safe environment where all the needs of a child are provided for. It costs as little as £600 a year to provide a boarding education for a child, and £180 a year for a day child. Hugo said, ‘My aim is to provide a complete education for one child boarding, or four who live at home – that would just about be recompense for the fantastic experience Nepal is going to give us’.

Anyone wanting to support Hugo’s attempt can donate to Future For Nepal online at www.justgiving.com/hugohunt

Download:

Sponsorship letter
Gift Aid Form


For more information contact:
Hugo Hunt
FitzHugh Gates,
23 & 25 High Street,
Shoreham by Sea
West Sussex BN43 5EE
Email:
01273 461381
www.fitzhugh.co.uk

See also:
www.justgiving.com/hugohunt
www.futurefornepal.com

29 September 2007