– Acknowledgements –

Thanks to my family, and to the many climbers who have helped me over the years and become close friends along the way – you know who you are! Thanks in particular to Douglas Scott CBE for introducing me to the Mazeno Ridge and so many other mountaineering adventures.

I must thank Rick Allen for his friendship and another great climb. And Cathy O’Dowd, Lhakpa Rangdu Sherpa, Lhakpa Nuru Sherpa and Lakpa Zarok Sherpa, without whose help, loyalty, determination and camaraderie we would have never reached the summit. My thanks to Muhammad Ali and all his staff who were so professional, efficient and acted so swiftly – and some of whom travelled a huge distance on foot through the night to meet us at the Kinshofer Camp 1. And Marek Holeček and the late Zdeněk Hrubý and their base camp team for the drinks, lighter, snacks and dry sleeping bags and friendship. Thanks to Voytek Kurtyka for talking and understanding what it’s like to live such an adventure, and for helping me to open up and find confidence to talk about my hallucinations.

Helen O’Neill, Dr Eunice Atkins, Andrew Greig and Gabriela Kühn for their encouragement. Thanks also to Andrew for permission to reproduce an excerpt from his poem ‘Three Above Namche Bazaar’.

Thanks to the Mount Everest Foundation and the British Mountaineering Council, and Mountain Equipment and PHD design.

Thanks to Cathy, Rick and Rangdu for taking such great photos which help to illustrate the story of our climb, and also to those climbers and friends who have supplied additional photographs for this book: Steve Razzetti, Markus Walter, Jochen Hemmleb, Robert Schauer, Doug Chabot and Pascal Tournaire.

And finally to Ed Douglas, my editor, and all at Vertebrate Publishing especially John Coefield, Nathan Ryder and Jane Beagley for taking the chance and for their outstanding work and attention to detail. It’s been an amazing experience.