Dead woman's pass

Steps, slopes, steeper slopes and more steps. But 4.5hrs after starting, we reached Dead Woman's Pass at 4200m. The pace up had been slow and plodding - whilst none of our muscles actually hurt, the trek was simply difficult. Uneven paths, big steps and thin air made for slow but steady progress.

Stops were frequent, but restarting after each one was itself a challenge and often led to a bit of a headrush in the first minute or two.

The views were brilliant, surrounded by mountains and snow peaks in the distance, with steam rising off the plants and clouds rolling over the valley. However the clouds made for a very bright backdrop...and most of the pictures of me have my eyes scrunched up from the brightness!! We'll save those for later.

At Dead Woman's Pass, we regrouped and geared up for the 2hr/4km descent. Having been rather concerned over my ability to complete today, it was a relief to get to the top, as well as a huge sense of achievement. It probably wasn't as difficult as I expected but it certainly was a challenge, and a number of our group suffered with altitude sickness on the way up.Read more