Giles Brown
LEGENDARY climber Mallory was asked before his his fatal ascent of Everest why he wanted to climb the world’s highest mountain.
“Because it’s there,” was his famous reply.
And that has been my mantra and get-out clause for much of much of my behaviour ever since. “Mr Brown. Please tell the jury and myself. Why did you have that last tequila shot/slice of pizza/speak to the blonde at the bar with the steroid enhanced boyfriend who was already annoyed with you?”
“Because he/she/it was there M’lud”.
I’m currently going through one of my health freak periods – before the traditional Christmas blow out – so when Glenn Ward suggested that we tackle Marbella’s iconic La Concha mountain to raise money for Positively Pink and Positively Blue Cancer Screening Charity, I thought I’d give it a go.
The Hottie Hippy was up for the challenge as well.
The only downside of this was that she was bringing Satanito with her, but she viewed this as an opportunity for him to work off some of his energy. (The kid could power a small town with his manic energy, trust me.)
Of course the most important thing about any ascent is getting an early start.
Which our intrepid team totally failed to do, oversleeping and setting out almost two hours behind the main group.
Satanito shot off into the pine forest that skirts the lower slopes of La Concha with a blood curdling yelp and we were kept informed of his progress by the sounds of franticly freeing fauna (goat, deer, boar, the odd Yeti, that sort of thing).
He also perfected the art of mountain ambush in minutes, leaping out from behind boulders and setting off small avalanches on unsuspecting hikers beneath. (Manic energy etc)
In the meantime the Hottie Hippy was also learning some vital mountain survival skills herself, the most important being to check for brambles and thorns should you need to suddenly use a bush.
Extracting her took several minutes, mainly because I was laughing so much.
In the meantime I had assumed the important role of Sherpa.
The Hottie Hippy had seemingly packed for a polar expedition, and I was soon lugging the bags up at the rear of our intrepid trio, muttering darkly to myself.
Eventually we caught up with the main group and reached the summit of La Concha just in time for lunch, to take in the views and snap a huge group selfie. And as promised, I got naked on the top of La Concha for charity wearing nothing but a pink headscarf as the photo proves!
Huge thanks to Glenn, Henrietta and Rob for organising the event, and making sure that everyone got down the mountain safely.
If you would like to donate, please send via PayPal to [email protected]
