The many ups and downs of 'Pauline's Fluffy World'

Pauline Sanderson on the roof of the world.

I’VE just been flying a Tornado!" Pauline Sanderson cheerfully declares when she meets me.

"And I only crashed twice!"

Fortunately for the British taxpayer, her low-flying tour of the Highlands took place courtesy of a simulator at RAF Lossiemouth, but with Pauline (47) you would not put the prospect of flying a real life high-performance jet past her.

Pauline’s thirst for adventure has already taken her around the world and from the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea, to its highest, Mount Everest, a trip made in a single journey which saw Pauline and husband Phil become the first British married couple to stand on the summit.

Pauline, the marketing manager for Glenmore Lodge, has now written about her adventures in "The World’s Longest Climb", though there is more to the book than one trip — even one that lasted six months and covered 8000km.

"The first part of the book is about the influences that gave me the right to go on this trip," Pauline explained.

Perhaps the biggest influence of all was the sudden death of her friend Terri at the age of just 17, giving the 20-year old Pauline a determination not to let any opportunity pass her by.

"I want to get it all in," she said.

Brought up on the island of Guernsey, Pauline had little experience of mountain sports before a holiday in the Lake District at the age of 16, but the real introduction to the outdoor life came when she went to university and joined the Officer Training Corps (OTC).

"The OTC introduced me to all those things," Pauline said.

"You had quite amazing teams of people and the more the challenge, the greater the camaraderie."

Having studied law, Pauline became a barrister, but by 30 she decided against making it a permanent career.

"The law was good fun, but I knew I’d never be a great lawyer, so why do it for another 40 years?" she said."But it wasn’t that calculated. I just found something else I wanted to do more."

What Pauline found more appealing was a career in the outdoor adventure sector. By this time she had already indulged her adventurous side by taking a year off from the law, beginning with a three month truck journey across Africa before striking off for Australia. There, a weekend visit to the Outback turned into a four month trip that included a road-train trip across the desert and a detour to Indonesia to cross the jungle island of Borneo, before heading back to Australia to work on a farm. Then on the way back to Britain she stopped off to go hiking in the Chilean Andes.

So Pauline left the law and qualified as an outdoor instructor and eventually found her way to Nepal where she fell in with a company called Equator Expeditions.

"They said: ‘Come back next year and you can be our sales girl.’ A year later I got a flight to Kathmandu, feeling very nervous," she said.

"There had been no e-mails or phone calls, so I just hoped they would remember this slightly drunken conversation from a year earlier."

Fortunately for Pauline, they did and she stayed on for the next four years.

By then she had met future husband Phil, also a climber and professional guide. He followed her to Nepal, but eventually decided to return to the UK to complete his British qualifications.

The couple based themselves in the Lake District for a few years until Phil was offered a job at Glenmore Lodge, the Scottish National Outdoor Training Centre near Aviemore — the dream job for a Scottish outdoors instructor. Pauline also found employment at Glenmore as the centre’s marketing manager.

However much she enjoys working at Glenmore and with her colleagues, this was not enough to satisfy Pauline’s taste for adventure, and when she heard of Everestmax, she put herself forward as a potential expedition member, a move which initially did not please Phil.

"My husband said: ‘Absolutely not — it’s a ridiculous idea — it’ll cost too much money — I don’t want to do a bike trip.’ But after two months of brow-beating he finally agreed," a triumphant Pauline added.

However, the couple would only be reunited on Everest after Pauline and her fellow cyclists arrived overland after their Dead Sea trip.

It was when she arrived at Heathrow that Pauline met all the other members of the team, fellow cyclists Dom Faulkner, Jamie Rouen, Sarah Lyle and Nic Clarke and their support team of Roweena Wright and Richard Walters.

"I was always going to be last," Pauline recalled.

"Of the five cyclists, three were in their 20s and one, who was ex-SAS, was in his 30s. At 41 I was the granny of the pack, but I knew from the first day I was with the right team because we got on so well."

Starting in Jordan, the team’s route took them through Syria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal and finally Tibet.

"All these so called anti-Western countries were fabulous," Pauline said, adding that Iran was probably the most surprising.

People there were unfailingly generous, offering the team shops to sleep in or holding out bunches of figs through their car window to refresh the cyclists as they rode, while a mechanic who fixed the support vehicle would not even accept payment.

"I’m a firm believer that politicians and religious leaders actually don’t represent people, they just have more air time," she said.

Turkey saw the team battling stomach upsets and wintry conditions, while Pakistan, where the group were provided with an armed escort, is remembered more by Pauline for its brightly decorated lorries and the adventurers’ sporting

stops.

"Almost every time we stopped without fail we had to have a game of football or cricket with whoever was around," she said. "India was a complete contrast. We went from open empty roads to massive over-crowding, but it was colourful, exhilarating — smelly. Then we were into Nepal, which was home to me for four years, so I love going back there and that was when Phil came back.

"Then cycling into Tibet we had to deal with the altitude. That was the only time in the whole 8000km we had to get off and push the bikes."

Buddying up with Phil for the climb which completed the journey, Pauline and Phil became the first married couple to complete the Everest climb and two of Pauline’s fellow cyclists also reached the summit.

Making their achievement even sweeter, the team just managed to beat Austrian adventurer Geri Winkler, who was attempting the same Dead Sea to Everest feat, by just two days.

"We’re not actually looking for anything," Pauline added cheerfully.

"If anything did come up, though, we’ve got no children, no pets, so off we go."