Cornish postman Ed Buckingham sets his sights on last of the world's seven highest continental peaks. Martin Freeman finds out how he does it.
Ed Buckingham is rightly proud of his winter boots – all £800 of them.
The price tag would match something to die for from London fashion week. But these are meant to keep him alive.
They were made for walking: they took him to the top of Everest.
On the way up those boots stepped over the remains of a man who had died near the summit years ago.
On the way down they took him past the corpse of a climber he'd seen alive days earlier.
He scaled the highest point in the world in 2011 at the age of 38, a step along the way to his goal of climbing the greatest mountains on all seven continents.
If all goes to plan, Ed will complete the list in January by scaling the 4,892m Mount Vinson in Antarctica.
Ed has been feted as the first Cornishman to climb Everest, which helped land him the Cornish Gorsedh Exceptional Endeavour award in September this year.
He reckons his greatest achievement, though, is to have come back in one piece.
"People look surprised when I tell them the boots cost £800," he says. "But I've still got ten toes. My gloves cost £100 – but I've still got two hands."
Those are sobering comments from a man who does not go in for emotion, not even when on top of the world.
He says he did not celebrate when he reached the summit of Everest because he knew the job was only half done.
"I was so focused because I knew that most accidents happen on the way down," he says.
And while the thought of losing a toe or a finger or a foot or a hand to frostbite is enough to send a shiver down the spine, Ed is not talking about a mishap that would leave him maimed. He is talking about something that might cost him his life, as his chilling experience on Everest illustrates.
About 3,500 people have reached the summit and more than 200 have died on the mountain. Conditions are so dangerous that if you die you will probably stay there. Other climbers would be risking their lives by bringing a body down.
Ed's achievements are remarkable on two further scores: he is not a wealthy man and he does not have a long list of sponsors. He finances his climbs on his modest wage as a Royal Mail lorry driver based in Plymstock.
Climbing Everest cost him £20,000 and the Antarctica trip will set him back about £30,000. His total expenditure on climbing the seven peaks will be about £80,000, he says.
"I have made a lot of sacrifices. I don't go out for meals, I don't go out drinking and I'm single. If I did have a partner, I don't think it would last long.I use all my holiday for this."
On top of that he has raised thousands of pounds for charitable causes. And it all started when he was a couch potato at home in Saltash in 1999.
"I'd broken my foot playing football," he recalls. "I was sitting with my foot up, putting on weight and watching television.
"I saw a travel programme about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
"I thought that it looked quite interesting. The farthest I'd been was Spain. I was 26 and getting a bit old for lads' holidays like that, so I thought I'd have a go."
He had twin worries about attempting to climb Africa's highest mountain (5,895m or 19,341ft): about getting ill on his first trip outside Europe, and about the thin air of the altitude.
"Nobody knows how their body will react at altitude. Anybody can suffer and not be able to get over it. If you do, the only cure is to come down.
"I got a slight headache but I followed the advice, to drink lots of water, even through the night when you wake up.
"I really enjoyed it and I felt overjoyed at the top."
After the Tanzania trip he was hooked on the idea of doing more climbing.
He did some winter training in Glencoe in the Scottish highlands and set his sights on Mont Blanc in France, at 4,810m the highest peak in western Europe, the following summer.
Unseasonal weather foiled that attempt and gave him his first experience of how dangerous high mountains can be. "We were thigh-deep in snow and had to turn back. I was so cold I had to be helped to put a coat on.
"Safety comes first. Nobody likes to give up but if you don't you are a danger to yourself, to the (expedition) leader and also to the rescue services who have to try to get you off the mountain." (After a second failed attempt it was third time lucky on Mont Blanc in 2004.)
After the French Alps disappointment Ed raised the bar in the winter of 2000 with a trip to Argentina. His aim was to tick off another of the seven summits, although he says at that stage he had no intention of climbing them all. "Everest never entered my head."
Aconcagua, the highest mountain in South America, was "a different kettle of fish at a few metres short of 7,000m (nearly 23,000ft). It was very hard going through a very dry valley at 35C to get to the mountain, very barren with no snow. The wind was 50-60mph – the higher you get, the stronger it gets – and we had to sit out a storm." Ed made the summit but suffered from altitude sickness.
The term makes the affliction sound like a bout of nausea. The reality is much, much worse. Ed was in the early stages of a potentially fatal, high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE), in which fluid begins to build on the brain.
"I was losing my balance and staggering and my speech was slurred." The guide gave him medication to reduce the effects and they descended.
Money saved, two years later he scaled Europe's highest peak, Elbrus in the Caucasus mountains in Russia. The 5,642m peak was not as hard as Aconcagua and "I did not really enjoy it," he says.
The following summer came his favourite climb so far: Mount McKinley (6,194m), in Alaska, the highest point in North America.
"The Inuit call it Denali, The High One, and I really enjoyed it. Because of the cold and the remoteness you have to bring more with you. I had a 100-litre pack and pulled a sledge.
"We were roped together in threes so if one of you fell through a crevasse – that's a real danger on the glacier – you had to hope the others braced and stopped you falling too far. It was hard. There were three bouts of bad weather and a lot of fresh snowfall.
"People are very environmentally aware there. You have to take every bit of waste out with you."
Every bit?
Ed smiles. "Everything, including your poo! You poop and scoop." A comment by one of the guides, that McKinlay was equivalent in difficulty to some of the easier 8,000m peaks in the Himalayas, got him thinking about the highest mountain range in the world.
And so in October 2005 he ticked off the sixth highest mountain on Earth, Cho Oyu. The 8,201m summit is considered the easiest 8,000m-plus mountain to climb and is a common target for guided parties.
Ed knocked that one off without oxygen tanks and was one of ten out of his group of 19 to make the summit. Most fell victim to debilitating stomach bugs and Ed suffered from frostbite.
"When you get to the top, you see Everest above you (about 12 miles away) and one of the climbers I met had climbed Everest."
That got him thinking. "I went to my GP and he said that if I wanted to do it, I was physically OK and very fit. It was up to me."
He consulted his mum and dad, Jean and Des, who also live in Saltash. They are keen walkers – ramblers rather than mountaineers – and were worried but accepted their son's desire to complete his adventure.
He set his sights on the notorious northern approach, the hardest route to the summit. It was a calculated risk. That route meant avoiding the Khumbu ice fall which eats up time (and money) and can stop climbers in their tracks because of crevasses. Many have died there.
Ed decided to go for it, despite the northern route necessitating two nights in the "death zone". That area, above 8,000m, is particularly dangerous because of high winds, low temperatures and the drastically reduced level of oxygen.
"Your body can't cope at that altitude. You are basically shutting down and the longer you stay, the more dangerous it is."
That was pressed home as he stepped over one corpse and past others.
He did not pay for a sherpa (helper), because he wanted the "full challenge" and to save money. His limited budget is always on his mind.
"At the top some people jumped about. Some got their mobile phones out. But I did not want to celebrate because I knew the job was half done.
"There was no point phoning my mum and dad until I was safely off the mountain."
The 20 minutes on the top was eaten up fumbling for a spare battery for his camera for some precious photos and getting read for the descent.
"I can't tell you how difficult it is climbing, even with oxygen, at that height. Everything takes ages."
The final mile to the summit typically takes 12 hours.
But he did it first time and raised £4,000 for the British Heart Foundation – his father suffers from cardiac disease.
Everest conquered, Kosciouszko (2,228m), the highest peak on the continent of Australia, was a relative stroll. "The biggest danger there was bush fires."
That leaves Mount Vinson waiting for him. He will set out from the UK on Boxing Day. Temperatures as low as minus 30C and the notorious Antarctic gales are among the hazards, although he says the mountain is not the most technically difficult.
"How will I feel when I make it? I can only surmise. I hope that I will feel relieved."
He is a changed person. Physically he has gone from 14st to 11st 7lbs on a 5ft 8in frame. "Your physiology is changed by high-altitude climbing," he explains.
The biggest changes are psychological. Saltash born and raised, and resident there all his life, Ed's horizons have been broadened.
"I've learned that the secret is being mentally strong, which I am. That's where the big difference is."
So will he hang up those boots once Vinson is bagged?
"I hope that will be my last," he says – though I wouldn't bet on it.
Ed will be raising money for the British Heart Foundation. You can sponsor him at justgiving.com/edvinson14
![One last mountain to climb: postman to scale Antarctic peak One last mountain to climb: postman to scale Antarctic peak]()