SNAKES, mosquitoes, extremes of temperature and altitude sickness will be just some of the hazards facing four local charity workers when they tackle one of the world's toughest mountains this week.
Rod Webb-Taylor, Debbie Horrell, Emily John and Liz Wotton all work for CHICKS at Dunterton near Milton Abbott, where they provide much needed holidays in the country for disadvantaged city kids.
They left for the east African state of Tanzania on Monday to climb Kilimanjaro — the continent's highest mountain at 19,340 ft. Climbing started on Tuesday and the ascent is expected to take six days, leaving three days to come down.
The four will join 16 of the charity's volunteers for the assault on the peak, which aims to raise some £50,000 for the charity. All the climbers are funding their own accommodation, flight and climbing equipment and will try to get £2,500 in sponsorship.
'We wanted to do something really challenging,' said Emily. 'None of us are mountaineers, but we've been training for more than a year towards it — walking on Dartmoor, going down the gym and swimming.
All the expedition members have also had to have a long series of inoculations and a course of anti-malarial medication.
The expedition is being organised by a company called charity challenge, which will be supplying an experienced mountain expedition leader.
'It will start in the jungle, where there will be tropical conditions, and as we make our way up the temperature will drop to -10 deg C — the mountain is covered year-round in snow — one extreme to another,' said Emily.
'There will probably be some of us that don't make it — altitude sickness and so on — but we have all worked together and we're all good friends so we will all help each other to the summit.
'Sure it's a bit scary, but we all wanted to do something that people would say 'wow!' that's a real challenge.'