Grania Willis has a mountain to climb. A rather lofty one, too: none other than Everest. And if scaling all 29,035ft of the world's tallest mountain wasn't enough of a challenge she's chosen to do it the harder way, via the demanding North Face.
If Willis succeeds she will become the first Irish woman to conquer the North Face, and in the process the Irish Times equestrian correspondent will raise substantial funds for both the Friends of St Luke's Hospital and the Irish Hospice Foundation.
The Grania Willis Mount Everest Challenge was officially launched at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin yesterday, soon after she took on one of her more unusual mountaineering challenges for the benefit of the assembled photographers.
"I have climbed in Italy, France, Scotland, Nepal, Tibet and now Stephen's Green," she said, relieved that she hadn't been mistaken by the law for a late-night reveller still struggling to find their way out of the park.
Willis leaves for Kathmandu on March 30th, her 12-strong team, led by New Zealander Russell Brice, aiming to reach Everest Base Camp on April 8th. Weather permitting - and Everest's weather rarely "permits" - the team hopes to reach the summit between May 17th and June 2nd.
While, for most, taking out gym membership is the one mountainous challenge they will contemplate undertaking in a lifetime Willis, a former international three-day event rider, resolved to one day climb Everest when she flew over the mountain in 2002.
"I was just so staggered by its beauty and the sheer scale of it," she said, "I just said, 'That's the mountain I want to climb'.
"Climbing had never been an abiding passion before then. Certainly climbing Everest hadn't been a goal since childhood, but I love challenges and this, I suppose, is as challenging as it gets," said Willis who last year became the first Irish woman to summit Cho Oyu on the Nepal-Tibet border, the sixth-highest mountain in the world.
She is, she said, hugely excited by the challenge, but while she welcomed the recent claim by the Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping that global warming has caused Everest to shrink by 4ft she still maintained that 29,031 was quite enough feet to be climbing.
Donations to The Grania Willis Mount Everest Challenge, which will go to the Friends of St Luke's Hospital and the Irish Hospice Foundation, can be made through the Permanent TSB in Blackrock, Co Dublin (Bank sort code: 99-06-44; Account number: 86877341; Visa card donations: 01-2303009).
