I climbed more than the height of Mount Everest at the Marsden Grotto steps
A South Tyneside man has climbed more than the height for Mount Everest at Marsden.
Nathaniel Brash started climbing up and down the Marsden Grotto steps at 7am on Friday, November 7, as he looked to climb the height of Mount Everest.
Over the course of the next 23 hours and 36 minutes, the 33-year-old managed to climb 30,022 feet - which is actually more than the height of the world’s tallest mountain.
The keen hiker and runner, who has taken on a number of physical challenges, has explained to the Shields Gazette where the idea to take on the height of Everest at the iconic coastal steps came from.
Nathaniel said: “I hike a lot of mountains so I’ve done all the Wainwrights twice and I’ve done 240 out of the 282 Munros in Scotland but during the winter months, I tend to have a little rest from hiking in the Highlands.
“I also do a lot of running but at the moment I’ve got a shin splint - I know it sounds daft but I can’t run at the moment without being in pain but I can hike up and down Marsden steps.
“About two weeks ago, I went to the steps and did around 1,000 metres and it was only afterwards that I thought that I could have pushed on a bit more.
“It was from then I told myself that I would climb the height of Mount Everest at the steps but I didn’t actually intend on doing it on Friday, I just went along to get a bit of a workout in.
“I started with a few hours to see how I got on and then I decided to keep going so my dad came along with some food and water so I could carry on.”
Nathaniel also revealed how it felt to finish the gruelling challenge and heaped praise on his loved ones for supporting him over the course of the climb.
He added: “It was an amazing sense of relief to finish because obviously it was physically exhausting but also mentally exhausting as well.
“When you’re hiking a mountain, you’ve got all the lovely new scenery around you but with this, it was just the same repetitive thing of going up and down the steps.
“I climbed more than 30,000 feet but I had to also downclimb that height as well as I was constantly going up and down.
“In the end, it felt like a bigger achievement of finishing it than what I thought it would be - I think it’s because I didn’t realise how hard it would be.
“When I was hiking up and down the stairs, people couldn’t believe what I was actually doing and then when I posted that I had done it on social media, people have been full of support.
“I also want to give a massive thanks to my dad and my girlfriend for how helpful they were during the challenge, my dad came out at 1am with a charger for my watch and then stayed with me while I climbed through the night.
“My partner set her alarm for 4am so they were both there to see my finish the climb.”