The Shugyo Project

(It’s on)

For years I’ve been obsessed with one mountain.

If you don’t know the Matterhorn, picture the jagged silhouette on a Toblerone box the one that makes chocolate look like a good idea. That’s the mountain. The actual thing is slightly more terrifying in reality.

Last week, “one day” officially became real.

The charity fund my friend manages has approved the plan.

Deposit paid. Funds released. Mild panic activated.

So July 2026, nine months from today I’ll be heading up the Hörnli Ridge to attempt the summit of the mountain that inspired a chocolate bar.

I am 50 something.

That particular age when people pick hobbies like gardening, heated car seats, or aggressively complaining about supermarket queues.

Instead, I’m dragging myself up 4,477 metres of Swiss granite.

I’ve swum the English Channel, stood on Mont Blanc and Gran Paradiso, crossed 6,000-metre passes in Nepal, and grown up being repeatedly battered by the Highlands of Scotland and the Lake District.

This mountain still scares me.

Perfect.

So this blog will be the unfiltered, slightly brutal record of the next nine months of,

• 04:30 swims, where I stare at the bottom of a pool wondering why I voluntarily signed up for aquatic torment

• Training hikes carrying weight, during which I long for the days I was 18 in the Army—when carrying heavy kit was actually easier and my back hadn’t yet developed opinions

• Days when the legs mutiny, the head issues threats, and both eventually give in purely because turning around isn’t an option

• And—if I survive the elements, altitude, and general cosmic spite—sunrise from 4,477 metres, which I assume will look glorious right before I limp back down

I’m doing this publicly to raise as much as possible for Aspire, a charity supporting people with spinal cord injury—people dealing with challenges far tougher than me voluntarily choosing to suffer up a mountain.

If you want to follow the sweat, the swearing, and hopefully the summit, stick around.

If you want to donate while I willingly torture myself uphill, the JustGiving link is below.

Either way welcome aboard.

Countdown begins.

Nick