Reaching new heights for Charlie’s Promise

Upper Sixth Godalming student, Ollie Badgery, recently accomplished an extraordinary feat: reaching the 4,167-metre summit of Mount Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa and the Atlas Mountains. Taking on the challenge alongside his friend Ben, they had a shared and powerful purpose: raising funds and awareness for Charlie’s Promise.

Charlie’s Promise is a charity established in memory of Charlie Cosser, a young man fatally stabbed at a party in July 2023. The charity raises awareness about the dangers of knife crime and its profound effects on victims and their families. For Ollie, the climb was a deeply personal mission, as Charlie’s younger sister is one of his closest friends.

We caught up with Ollie to find out more about his incredible adventure.

When and why did you decide to take on this massive challenge?

I decided to do it back in October, as the work Martin (Charlie’s Dad) is doing for the charity is absolutely astonishing, and the sheer amount of people Martin has made aware of the dangers and cruelty of knife crime is also amazing, hopefully making streets safer and knife crime less common. This particular climb was chosen quite randomly, as me and my friend have wanted to do a mountain involving snowy/icy conditions for a while now, and also a mountain that's above 4000m. We thought Morocco is reasonably cheap and an easy place to access and the scenery there is amazing so we opted for that.

How did you go about training and preparing for the climb?

In the last month or so leading up to the climb, we started doing more cardio in the gym such as the stair-master and paced walking up a gradient on the treadmill and eating healthier overall, with also cutting down on alcohol and stopping vaping etc.

What was the hardest section of the climb and how long did it take to complete?

The climb itself took two days with the first day starting at 11.30 am at a local village and getting to the refuge at 6.30 pm with an altitude of 3200m. Then day 2 we set off at 5.30 am and reached the summit at 8.30 am with an altitude of 4167m. Then we started our descent and got back to the village at 5.00 pm, so overall it took about 19 hours up and down. The hardest section of the climb is quite hard to determine. There were two sections that stood out. There was a two hour section before the refuge point where it was snowy and slippery and quite steep, which was particularly difficult as we didn't have access to crampons at that stage, so with every three steps we would practically lose one, as we kept slipping back which was very tiring. The other section was the first hour and a half or two hours of the summit push, as we were going up a very steep bit early in the morning, also acclimatising to less oxygen and our first time being remotely close to 4000m altitude so that also was particularly difficult.

How did you feel at the end and do you have any other climbing ambitions?

At the summit, it was an incredible and unforgettable feeling, standing on top of Africa essentially with a breathtaking view, clear skies and a huge sense of pride. We were of course very tired reaching the summit and were just in awe taking it all in and realised what we have achieved. Thankfully, none of us passed out or anything from altitude sickness, however, it was significantly harder to breathe and I also managed to pick up a quite chesty cough as a result of the lack of oxygen. Back in the hotel in Marrakesh, of course, most of our bodies were aching, especially quads and feet, as the descent pushes your feet to the front of the boots and that's where blisters commonly start to occur. I lost my voice a little bit and it was a bit painful to breathe as lungs were feeling quite tight, but all okay now.

Our ambitions in the future will involve Mont Blanc, as that has been on the bucket list for a while now, standing on the pinnacle of Europe, and hopefully, begin some more complex mountains involving rope work and harnesses. Maybe in the foreseeable future, we can start doing some even bigger mountains such as Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua and Elbrus.

We wish Ollie lots of luck and success with his future climbing expeditions, and if you are able to make a small donation via his JustGiving page, it will help boost the money raised for Charlie’s Promise and their ongoing mission to raise awareness about knife crime: Oliver Badgery is fundraising for Charlie's Promise

Please remember that you can report ALL knife carriers 100% anonymously through fearless.org or by calling 0800 555 111.