Steve Plain: From a hospital bed to shattering mountaineering world record

Three years ago, sleeping on his hospital bed with a halo brace on, Steve Plain decided to go on the most adventurous challenge of his life. For many people who would have occupied the bed before him, this might have been getting back on their feet and resuming their daily lives, but not for Plain.

He wanted to do something that would put his name in the record books, and climbing the world’s seven summits – the highest mountain in each of the seven continents within four months would surely put him there.

After three and a half years of hard work, he completed the feat on May 14, 2018, completing the challenge in 117 days.

“It has been a long four months,” recalls Steve, who says the only thing he is looking forward to is meeting his family and sleeping in own bed. “I miss my bed the most and I look forward to sleeping on it,” he shares.

But when asked about his record-breaking feat, Steve is lost for words. “After all that I’ve been through I think it all ended very quickly. But, having said that, I think it has been a life-changing experience for me,” he adds.

Steve started his journey 11 months after his injury. “I had to get back on my feet. The doctors told me it would take me a year to walk, but I took that as a challenge and climbed my first mountain in New Zealand,” adds Steve, who had no mountaineering experience prior to his injury.

This is how it began

By 2016, he had climbed Mt Aspiring in New Zealand, Mt Chopicalqui in Peru and Mt Lhotse in Nepal in a bid to get ready for the ‘seven in four’ challenge. “If I look back, these mountains were very important. It gave me a general idea of preparing myself for the challenge,” he adds.

His plan was simple; start the project at Antarctica around January and end it by conquering Mt Everest in May.

The first mountain he headed out to conquer was Vinson in Antarctica. “I was raring to go. It was the first mountain and I was really excited about the entire journey that was about to start,” he adds.

“Vinson was pretty easy. It was a bit cold, but the weather gods were kind to us. I really couldn’t believe I was in Antarctica,” he adds.