TWO Tavistock girl guides are this week coming back down to earth after a charity coffee morning with a big difference.
Zoe Viggers, 23, and Emma Hogg, 19, were part of the Girlguiding UK trekking team which held the World's Highest Coffee Morning at the 18,500ft summit of Kala Pattar, a peak near Everest base camp.
The event, held after more than a week of arduous trekking in the thin air of the Himalayas, was to raise awareness of Macmillan Cancer's charity coffee morning campaign. Similar events were held at the world's highest hotel at 12,370ft and at 14,435ft at Dingboche.
Emma said: 'It was an amazing experience. The best bit was getting to the Everest base camp — the views of the mountains around us were incredible. You don't realise the sheer scale of it, how huge they are.
'And that day it actually snowed, so we were walking in the snow to the camp and it was just breathtaking.'
Emma said the rugged terrain was the hardest challenge of the 12-day trek.
'You are constantly going up and down. You'd see your destination and think it was only an hour away, but you'd have to go up and down the valleys for ages. However, we stuck together and encouraged each other so it was all worth it in the end.'
During the trip the team of 13 girls had to cope with post-monsoon rains, blistering sunlight and temperatures ranging between -10c and 30c — energy-sapping conditions, even without the effects of altitude.
On the return a yak carrying some of the team's packs fell from a rope suspension bridge into a glacial river.
Guide leader Zoe said the trekking had been 'very hard work', but the immense landscape was 'just breathtaking'.
'The experience will last with all of the team forever. We've made great friendships within our group and with the Nepali people along the way,' said Zoe.
The girls' final profile-raising coffee mornings were held in Kathmandu with tourism chiefs and the government's youth minister, and at 550mph somewhere above the desert in Baghdad, on a Qatar Airways Airbus!