A friend once asked me what qualities were needed for SAS. I would say to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim; to be unflappable, be able to react fast and to have an ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ mentality.

Juice Plus+ is great stuff that I have used through all of my expeditions. What I like about it is that the research behind it is so strong. It is 100% natural, is whole food based, and I love the fact that it provides raw, anti-oxidant fruit and veg in a capsule form. For me it fulfills a key part of my nutrition, training and recovery needs.

One thing I know for sure: it is only by doing what we fear that we can ever truly learn to be brave.

Our achievements are generally limited only by the beliefs we impose on ourselves.

To get ready to climb Everest, I did a lot of hill running with a daypack on and a lot of underwater swimming. I would swim a couple of lengths underwater and then a couple above. It gets your body going with limited oxygen.

That feeling when you're so cold you'd give anything to be warm - I've had it before, literally huddled around a candle flame on an ice sheet.

I do see a lot of the hard end of ecology, and my feeling is that we live on a super-exciting planet but a super-fragile one.