One week to go and fund raising exceeds £115,000!

It's now less than a week before we head off to Zermatt and we are absolutely delighted that our fund raising total has reached a fantastic £117,560. Thank you to all who have supported us so generously. This will make a significant contribution to helping the Haven bring support to people who really need it in the Wessex region.

As ever we'd still like to keep pushing the total so if anyone would like to donate you can do so easily at www.justgiving.com/matterhornchallenge

We'd also like to thank RSA for supplying us with Fleeces on top of their generous donation to the Haven.

We only have about 10 days before we attempt the climb, but this amazing challenge was conceived over a year ago by John Woodman. Here are his thoughts on how it all started:

''In the early summer of 2012 a fund raising team was assembled to try and engage local support for fund-raising campaigns for a new Haven in the Wessex area. I was approached by two of this team, I was informed about what the Haven did,  and asked whether I might do something to raise money for the new Haven.  For a number of reasons, breast cancer charities are quite close to my heart and I agreed to give it a go.

The Haven story is a compelling one.  I have since visited both the Fulham and Leeds Haven centres and they do a fantastic job providing support for breast cancer sufferers and I have since spoken to a number of locals in Hampshire who have visited the centres whilst receiving treatment for breast cancer and all have said how helpful it would be to have one closer to home.

I suppose climbing the Matterhorn has always been at the back of my mind.  And clearly quite a few others too. I have skied in both Zermatt and Cervinia  and have seen quite a lot of the mountain. You would probably never get the chance to climb without a decent excuse! and it is a very real challenge for anyone and as a result has the potential to engage with those who might sponsor you and raise quite a lot of money as a result.

Putting the team together really rather happened quite quickly. Shortly after the idea was hatched I went to Lords to watch the England V South Africa first day test match as a guest of Tim Wheeler and Paul Reid. During the game I chatted to Tim about the idea and he immediately said it is something that he would like to do too.  Tim is an experienced mountaineer, knows some of the mountain guides very well, and offered to source the guides for our trip as part of his involvement.  The plan started to take shape.

A few weeks later I was stalking in Scotland with Malcolm Le May, and over dinner I mentioned the idea, and Malcolm said he would like to come too.  Having been stalking with Malcolm that day, and seen him struggle up the Scottish hillside, climbing the Matterhorn seemed slightly improbable. However he mentioned he had some climbing experience and needed to lose some weight!  And a year later he really has!

And after that news spread of the idea,  whilst in Scotland Will Hellier emailed me to say he would like to join the team and very shortly after that Kevin Bespolka did the same . Kevin was brought up in Austria and is a relatively experienced climber, Will, a doctor always handy to have on board!  And in early September, at an Evensong at Winchester College Chapel,  Andrew Bentley came on board too.

During the winter Will Hellier had a "flutter" on his heart!  This medical condition is now fine, however we decided that a seventh member of the team would be a good idea to take the pressure off Will.  And so in June Tim Dunger joined the team and put in place a very hard and strict training regime to get him to a level the rest of us were at as quickly as he could.

So now we are seven. It's a little over a year since this all started.. We have trained hard, are now fit and ready to go. ''


The weather on the Matterhorn is looking good this morning although you can see from the snap below from the Zermatt webcam that there is quite a bit of fresh snow. The mountain has been shrouded in cloud for the last few days but the forecast is for a few days of clear weather ahead of some more unsettled days. Hopefully that will precede a good clear break for our climbing day.