My mission consists of travelling to Morroco with a friend to climb the highest mountain in Northern Africa- Toubkal, which sits at 4165m above sea level, working out to be just under four times the size of Snowdon! This will be my first taste of high altitude climbing; we're aiming to do it in 3 to 4 days, camping on the mountain as we go.
I aim to hopefully document everything through my instagram - 'Salvador_gnarlyy'
My father suffered from Crohn's Disease and as his physical health deteriorated, so did his mental health and this lead to tragically and unexpectedly losing him in December 2018. Grieving is a tough process to go through and I was a bit sceptical about therapy, as being able to verbalise how I felt seemed alien to me, but then I was made aware of StrongMen- a charity who aim to give help to people who have suffered with bereavement through the form of physical activities.
I was fortunate to be selected to take part in the first StrongMen event. We met in Snowdonia National Park and I can honestly say it was a truly liberating experience. Meeting with a group of people who were all linked in some way through grief would seem bleak but in turn had the opposite effect. Nature has a calming effect and as everyone's focus was on reaching the summit of Snowdon, relationships formed through loss and the guarded approach of not talking about how we were feeling dissipated. I realised there was no reason to hide our hurt, everyone there had felt it in some way. There was no guilt or feeling of burdening people with heavy conversation.
Overall, I feel the concept of strongmen is incredible; an organic idea that on paper is so simple but in practice has proven to be so profound for all of us involved. Everyone who attended the weekend are still in touch and continue to offer support and ideas to each other and the charity. I suppose this is my way of trying to pay back what they have given me, to raise money for the charity who are still very much in the early stages, where every donation means they edge closer to being able to provide what we lucky few had to a much larger quantity!
''If you put a group of men in a room what have they got too talk about...absolutely everything'' - Dan Cross