Olivia, being born and bred in Lancashire, unsurprisingly spent a lot of time in the Lake District as a child as well as holidaying regularly in Switzerland. Her childhood was filled with all things outdoors, ‘instead of playing with dolls I was rolling down mountains and swimming in lakes’.

We’re delighted to have her on board as an Ascendancy Apparel ambassador and her next challenge is one of epic proportions!

Mera Peak, standing at 6,476 metres high is one of the highest trekking peaks in the world. Climbing in the Himalayas is a dream for most adventure seekers and Olivia decided earlier this year that it was time to face her biggest challenge yet! Despite having hundreds of mountain hours under her belt she will have never attempted anything of this size and, at 26, Olivia will be the youngest member of a six person expedition.

The expedition will take a total of 17 days, most of which will be spent trekking, with the summit day itself is set to be a 14 hour trek with some steep technical climbing, facing temperatures as low as -20C. Indeed it’s the temperature, as well as the altitude, that will be the hardest things to overcome; as Olivia puts it, ‘they say that nothing can make you more prepared for altitude and long hours in cold conditions than having a stronger mind. I’ve just spent more hours on my feet in the mountains gaining height and doing longer distances, I've also been out in harsher conditions, rain and stronger winds and spent some time in the mountains at night'. Having spent hours hiking and running to date Olivia’s fitness is already at the necessary level.

As this is largely a trekking peak Olivia won’t need too much in the way of specialist equipment, although she will have a walking axe in case she slips (eek!) during any of the more technical sections - most of which are above 5000 metres.

Owing a lot to her adventurous experiences, she explains how being in the outdoors has helped to develop her mentally as well as physically;

‘I have really learnt a lot about who I am in these situations that you can’t learn living a day to day normal life.
Being in the mountains and taking on personal challenge’s like this makes me feel EMPOWERED. It gives me freedom; there’s nothing more satisfying than climbing high with kindness and compassion and making myself believe I am stronger than my fears.
The pure, simple challenge of working out what I’m going to do and then just going and doing it.

Anyone who wants to climb to this extreme, id say be fearless and do it’.

Olivia jets off to the Himalayas next week and we’ll be checking in with her on her return to the UK at the end of the month! We can’t wait!

Keep up with her progress in the meantime on her Instagram.