"We Had The World To Ourselves": Al Carns' Everest Climb

L-r: Al Carns, Kevin Godlington, Anthony ‘Staz’ Stazicker and Major Garth Miller (Credit: Sandro Gromen-Hayes)

Sophie Church

@sophiealichurch

The Red Lion has witnessed plenty of pipedreams, so when Al Carns had a pint with a friend the old Whitehall watering hole might have been forgiven a cynical sigh to hear their chat.
But the plan hatched that night in January – to scale Mount Everest in a week to raise cash for veterans’ charities – is now a record-breaking achievement.

Carns credits his fellow veteran, founding member of the charity Tickets for Troops Kevin Godlington, for setting the ambition as high as it was possible to go.

“He said, ‘Go big or go home. We should climb Everest,’” Carns tells The House.

The challenge was daunting. As an MP and minister, there was no way Carns could be absent from Westminster for eight to 10 weeks – the time it usually takes to complete the task. So, the pair decided to climb Everest in just seven days.

“Without realising some of the pain and hard work you’ve got to go through to then do it in a week – that was it; we were on the journey, and away we went.”

From the Red Lion, the all-veteran team – comprising Carns, Goldington, former special forces operator Anthony “Staz” Stazicker and Major Garth Miller, now a British Airways pilot – had five months to prepare for the challenge.

For Carns, this meant hours spent on the stepper in Parliament’s small basement gym. He would also go for runs around Westminster, joined by Labour MP Josh MacAlister: “He was good for pace-setting and just testing where I was physically.”

But where most people who climb Everest gradually acclimatise to the high altitude by ascending and descending between camps on the mountain, Carns did not have the luxury of time.

Instead, the minister slept in a tent on top of his bed, which, once sealed, took the oxygen levels in the air down from around 20 per cent to nine. “I wouldn’t recommend it – it was a miserable night’s sleep,” he says. “Over time, it’s pretty draining.”

Carns also fondly recalls the “godforsaken” wooden step-up box and mask he kept in his flat for acclimatisation training: “You put the mask on, and you step up and down the box for an hour and a half at a time, which is probably the most mind-numbing exercise you could ever possibly imagine, but prepared us well for going up Everest.”

Training completed, the team left London on 16 May for Kathmandu. Taking a helicopter to base camp, they spent four hours there, before climbing for 12 hours straight to camps one and two.

“Oh, we got hit by an avalanche up to camp one,” Carns says, almost as an afterthought, “which was quite interesting.”

From camp two, the team quickly changed into bespoke arctic suits for the next ascent: a 70-degree tilt up through camps three and four. As Carns turned into the last camp – a windswept moonscape known comfortingly as the ‘death zone’ – he saw the first dead body.

“There was a frozen body just to our left, who’d sat down the night before, fully in his summit suit with his rucksack on. He’d have taken a rest and fallen asleep or something and frozen to death.”

With the wind howling between the scattered, destroyed tents at camp four, Carns says it was “touch and go” whether the team could make the final scurry up to the summit.

But the team’s guides spotted their chance: a three-to-four-hour window where the winds dropped below 30 miles per hour. Halfway up, the group was caught by 60 mile per hour winds and a white-out – heavy snowfall rendering them blind. Some of the sherpas were forced to turn back, but the team persisted.

“We punched through the weather. The cloud broke, the sun came up, and we had the whole mountain and the world to ourselves.”

Just four days after leaving London, the group had made it to Everest’s peak. What was it like, standing on Earth’s highest point?

“It makes you realise what’s important and what isn’t – it puts everything in perspective,” he says. “You’re the same height as airliners fly. It’s a fantastic feeling, especially after such a short, sharp, but intensive summit push.”

The journey home was not without its difficulties. Between camps three and four, Godlington ran out of oxygen. He had also drunk some “dodgy water” at the summit, leaving him with stomach cramps.

“It’s not ideal when you’re on a 70-degree slope, at 8,000, 7,500 metres,” says Carns. “We had to rally around him. I clipped myself to him, then Staz helped him out with locking on to the ropes, and we managed to get him down to camp three.”

Just four days after arriving in base camp, the team returned to Kathmandu via helicopter – the pilot astonished the team had cracked the summit in four to five days, not 45.

Looking back on the experience, Carns says: “This mission was to promote veterans in a positive light, and try and raise resources for veterans’ charities. I was really proud to be amongst a great team who sat with a mission and focused solely on achieving it.”

“The breaking records isn’t a huge deal to me, but it makes me proud to be British – to know that myself and three other Brits cracked that mission in seven days from London and got back in time for Sunday lunch,” he adds with a smile.

However, the group’s achievement was questioned by some. According to rules set by Nepal’s Department of Tourism, all climbers must declare equipment, medication and substances used during expeditions up Everest. On returning to the UK, Carns was forced to deny the veterans were under investigation by the department for using xenon gas – which prevents altitude sickness – to ascend the mountain. 

Carns later clarified that the group had used xenon in Germany weeks before the start of their mission.

At the time of writing, the team have raised more than £90,000 for armed forces and veterans charities – especially those with a focus on supporting bereaved children of serving members.

With so many military charities operating in the UK, does Carns think the sector can be overwhelming for the people it is trying to support?

“One hundred per cent,” he says. “There are 1,770 military charities in the UK, which is hugely confusing. It’s a billion-pound industry, so no veteran should really go without, but it is quite a complicated system. Veterans often have to repeat their story six or seven times before they get the support they need.”

While the government’s Valour initiative – providing £50m worth of support for veterans – is still being rolled out, the minister says he is wary of confusing the system further by introducing a veterans commissioner in England. However, he says he will make a “balanced decision” on whether to create this position “probably the back end of summer”.

For now, the minister is picking up with friends and family again after a gruelling few months – joking the only challenge he can take on right now is “seven pubs in seven days”.

So, no return to the step-up box?

“I’m going to drop-kick that straight out of the flat.” 

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