Ain't no mountain high enough - for Billi Bierling

What would figure on your list of 10 things to do before you die? Sorry to appear rather morbid, but it's one of those questions that has been the stuff of many a television programme.

Swimming with dolphins perhaps? Or how about trekking to see those mountain gorillas in East Africa? Scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef is another one that often appears on the list, as is (maybe more sedately) attending the carnival in Rio.

But for one exceptional woman it has always been about climbing THAT mountain - Everest. And that's exactly what Billi Bierling is trying to do at the moment.

I first encountered Billi over a decade ago when we were both rather "mature" students (in comparison to the others on the course) at the same post grad school in London.

She walked loudly (Billi never does anything quietly) into the lecture theatre on the very first day, scanned the assembled crowd and bounded up to me, bicycle saddle in hand (another story) and boomed, "Hello, I"m Billi from Germany, who are you?"

It was a moment of sheer delight as this woman barged into my life with such obvious joy and bonhomie. How could anyone not take an instant like to such a person?

We've remained close friends ever since even though our jobs and lives have sometimes taken us to different countries and even continents.

Billi has been crazy about sports ever since I've known her. Cycling, running and swimming have been her everyday pursuits, and she has even combined them on a couple of occasions to compete in triathlons.

Along the way she has had her fair share of sporting-related injuries and has undergone surgery for fractured "this" and broken "that", but always seemed to recover with alarming speed and was back pounding the roads and pushing the pedals when most ordinary mortals would simply be "taking it easy".

But one thing has always captured her imagination - climbing. And not just any old hill or pile of rocks, but the biggest of the lot (of course) Everest.

There's no point in asking "Why?" I've done that and just had the biggest of grins as a response followed by a torrent of superlatives and vivid descriptions about the rush she gets from climbing, the challenge, the beauty, the magnificence of reaching the peaks.

She's captivated by the idea, not just of climbing, but making it all the way up that 8,800 plus metres. It's almost as though she's in love with the thing, just as much as she is with Nepal where she lives.

But when push comes to shove and when pressed a little further, Billi is willing to offer up the following as a reason.

"I have wondered myself why I am doing it," she writes on her website. "And the only answer I can come up with is NOT 'because it’s there' as George Mallory put it, but because I need to have a look at the mountain myself."

And that's exactly what she's doing right now.

Sunset over Everest seen from Lobuje Peak

You can follow her daily exploits here in her Everest diary. Yep modern technology is amazing.

Even though she's supposed to be thousands of kilometres away and officially "out of touch" while in the process of tackling Everest, Billi still manages to find time to sit down and share her experiences with the rest of us.

It makes compelling reading. Heck, you even feel as though you're there. And it's happening in real time.

So sit back, relax and then move a little closer to the edge of your seat as you join Billi and the rest of them currently making their way up Everest, Sagarmatha, Chomolungma, Qomolangma, Zhumulangma or whatever you want to call it as one woman attempts to "realise her dream".


All images reproduced with kind permission of Billi Bierling.