A GROUP of 16 girl guiding members from West Devon are setting off for Everest Base Camp this week, in an attempt to set an altitude record for the World's Highest Coffee Morning.
The team will be trekking for Macmillan Cancer Support and hope to hold the event on the 18,500ft peak of nearby Kala Pattar if conditions allow.
The trek follows the success of the Tavistock Young Guide Leaders who inflated their hot air balloon at world record altitude in the Himalayas last September.
It is the next part of Girlguiding South West England's Everest 100 project, which hopes to achieve 100 members reaching the base of Mount Everest before the 2010 Centenary.
The team, sponsored by Somerfield, will be at high altitude in the mountains for more than two weeks and have been training for many months on Dartmoor.
Emma Hogg, 18, of Tavistock, said: 'All the planning and training is done and we can't wait for the mountain top moment of this exciting challenge. It's a great opportunity for us and a great opportunity for Girlguiding South West to help raise profile for Macmillan.'
While the team are in Nepal, girlguiding units throughout the South West Region are holding their own coffee mornings — some of them in imaginative locations such as the Plymouth ski slope — in support of Macmillan's flagship fundraising event the World's Biggest Coffee Morning.
The team is expected to hold their coffee morning at 6am [local time] on SundaySeptember 14.
Zoe Viggers, 23, one of the team leaders, said: 'Our sunrise event will be the same as those at home, just a bit higher! And the coffees and cake will be that little bit more welcome after the long cold climb!'
The team has a website at http://www.coffeemorning.org.uk">www.coffeemorning.org.uk and more about the Macmillan Coffee Mornings can be found at http://www.macmillan.org.uk">www.macmillan.org.uk