Above All Else

If a dream is easy to achieve, is it even worth trying? A dream should be just on the cusp of what is possible.

The wind is whipping up the north face of the Eiger, blasting ice crystals against exposed skin, numbing my fingers. A buff covers my face but my goggles are fogged by warm breath. The full-face helmet keeps my ears warm and muffles the noise of the helicopter hovering about 60m away from me. I look down at my toes, shuffling them closer to the edge of the cliff. Soon I’ll have a countdown over the radio.

The helicopter will be filming me, and I can afford any second-guessing if I am to synchronize the movement of the heli and my flight. I need to react instinctively to the countdown. More than 1,000 jumps have created muscle memory. There is no need to overthink the actions; just let them play out and react to any negatives.

The radio sparks into life. ‘Three.’ My right foot leads, toes pressed into a little edge of limestone to give me maximum traction when I push.

‘Two.’ I lean back to gain momentum to push forward.

‘One.’ I spring into life, looking down towards the alpine meadows below, and my legs extend, pushing away from this notorious face of the Alps. My body follows my head and I extend into the perfect flying position. The suit inflates, creating an aerofoil; I spread my arms and legs to put tension on what is now a rigid wing. Intuitively I turn to my left, flying metres away from the cliffs at speeds of up to 240kph.

But this is just a test run – a warm-up for bigger things to come on bigger mountains.

Two years later, in 2025, I found myself curled up in a ball of down feathers waiting for a weather window as Jon Gupta threw a rock off the precipice high on Lhotse, counting 11 seconds until it hit the ground. We had found the highest wingsuit exit in the world.

I’d found my dream, I’d realised what was possible, and after two attempts at this jump the end was both mentally and physically within my reach.

On any mountain, the technicalities and unforgiving weather are things you just don’t have control over, but each minute I spent above 8,000m I was gaining experience to achieve my dream: to be the first person to fly a wingsuit from a mountain above 8,000m. Due to the precise variables, this was very likely a record that could never be broken. Quite simply there is no higher cliff in the world to jump from. I studied all aspects of all the mountains above 8,000m and there is nothing else. So the south face of the Lhotse ridge became my chosen location.

Wingsuit BASE jumping is already an inherently risky sport, but accidents are due to human error. Making the right decisions is the name of the game. Still, no-one had jumped from this high before. The previous record was set by a Russian, Valeri Rozov, on Cho Oyu at 7,800m. Ama Dablam took his life a few years later and no-one had attempted such high altitude jumps since.

There is very little in the way of information, procedures, or help when pioneering jumps at this altitude. I gained my experience on other high-altitude jumps such as Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, and Mount Kenya. I am reliant solely on my own experience and calculated thinking.

We learnt a lot from the first attempt at the Lhotse jump in 2024. I was nervous. I didn’t know how I would handle the altitude. I was anxious about the vulnerability of being so high, reliant on oxygen. It was an environment unlike anything I had experienced before. Would the fatigue get the better of me? How would I know my limits in an environment so much higher than I’m used to? Thanks to the extreme pressures on the human body, failure could mean death. We chatted to a Chilean climber who died later that night in his tent. Another died descending the Yellow Band. Jake and I watched from a distance as people stepped over his body, so exhausted and concentrating in taking their next step they had no reserves to take any consideration for a fellow climber.

It was a different world up there. Viewing these scenes makes you take a deep look into the human psyche, and in turn yourself. While considering these confessions of mortality I realised that my humour stands in a dark corner of the room as a way of dealing with situations that aren’t experienced on the high street – another trait from my time in the Royal Marines.

Ultimately I realised this project would not be as easy as I had once envisioned, but would take multiple attempts and adaptations of the plan to truly be able to achieve the goal. In 2024 we turned around 100m below our exit point. A new route had been established to a col on the Lhotse–Nupste ridge. With 100m of climbing left, our oxygen was dwindling, weather was setting in, and that was our last window of the season. It would be two years before my next attempt.

In the weeks leading into the second time on Lhotse I found myself questioning my reasons more and more. I came to the conclusion that without risk, I would be a different person. Throughout my life I’ve always been motivated by a challenge; I’ve always worked and lived in high-risk situations. It’s part of who I am.

The night before I left, my wife could sense my uneasiness. ‘Are you scared?’ she asked me. And I said I was. But I wasn’t scared about the jump, the potential of not returning, but rather the potential of leaving her alone while searching for my ultimate dream. The last time our goodbye had been so emotionally charged I was heading to a warzone.

As the stakes become higher, so does the risk. Something about this trip felt more real. A lot of the questions had been answered and I knew what it was like up there. We had a better team, better logistics, and it was likely we were going to get the jump. I spent hours just envisioning what it would be like with my toes curled over the edge of the cliff, looking down to my landing 3,000m below me where the oxygen was thicker. The commitment in my visualisations felt real. The more realistically I could visualise, the more I could prepare myself for the reality of the day; the more I could control my emotions, my nerves, my doubts, and my fear. To control these emotions I don’t override them, I understand them. By doing so I can change the end result through rationalisation and correction. Am I fearful because of my equipment? Learn the equipment better, its breaking strains, the malfunctions; test it more.

But there will always be one question I can’t answer until I’ve jumped: what is it like to jump from 8,000m? How will the wingsuit react? Will the flying be stable? The only thing I can do is to mitigate, gain experience and prepare, understand the theory behind it all.

The final push was to come, but the dates kept on shifting; first the 15th, now the 19th. Even when we got to our new camp at 7,900m, we had to wait for three nights. We spent the hours and days playing cards, chatting, and watching the clouds over the summits of Everest and Lhotse. We rested, reducing our oxygen intake, changing our bottled oxygen daily, and waiting for the weather window. Then we climbed.

Tom was the lynchpin that made the last 100m possible. Quite possibly the hardest climbing at this altitude anyone has ever done, setting a rope in place for the rest of us to follow. We watched Tom forge his way up an overhanging dihedral in full beast mode, his oxygen bottle in his pack, climbing in mittens and full down suit. Jon followed next as the rest of us waited below. The cloud was thick, the wind whipping up the snow which settled on our resting bodies. We were becoming part of the mountain.

We lost sight of Tom and Jon on the summit. The radio sat silent with no reply. The conditions worsened and our oxygen supplies were dwindling. Dewa, our lead Sherpa, raised his head from between his knees and calmly announced that it’s best we start making our way down before we get ourselves into a predicament. Although I felt frustrated to be turning around a second time, looking at the situation dispassionately – taking the weather into account, the savage conditions, the lack of contact with our team high above – I knew what decision had to be made.

We left Tom and Jon a resupply of bottled oxygen and began making our way down. Only later would we discover that they were sitting above the swirling maelstrom of ice, prepping the exit point while we retreated once again from the edge of the goal that had driven me for so long.

Jon stood at the edge of the black tower. Although tethered into a bolted anchor, as he later told us, the exposure was overwhelming. A blanket of thick cloud covered the terrain below, but by simply tossing a rock and counting the seconds to impact we would have a rough indication how big the cliff was. Jon gently threw a rock off the edge. Eleven seconds seems like an impossibly long time for anything to fall. The wait must have been tantalising for him, standing up there on the edge of the void, possibilities and impossibilities held in the balance for those few seconds. Then the rock hit the snow below with a thud. For the first time, there could be no doubt this jump was possible.

Now we know. The jump exists. We can reach it. The only remaining question is when we can reach the top in the perfect conditions we need.

It was maybe naive to think I could do this in just one trip. It wasn’t just the ambition or determination that would enable me to pull this off, but the timing, the team, the logistics, the weather, and the access. It was a full-team commitment, and when I do get it done, it will be a full-team accomplishment. I’ve never been on an expedition where every team member had such a vital and pivotal role, one where without them the end goal would be unachievable.

I believe challenging yourself makes you a better person, whether that’s a physical or mental challenge. It teaches us mental strength, endurance, the ability to plan, adapt, and improvise. It teaches us that failing is just part of the process and that getting back on the horse is rising above adversity. It helps me understand what is important in this life. One must rise to a challenge to learn and grow as a person: this is my way to challenge myself, to better myself. Above all else I’ve learnt to be true to my own motivations and ambitions, and ultimately come back to the ones I love, to climb another day.

First published in Sidetracked Volume 34