Ex-Post reporter conquers mountain trial, for her dad

A Hong Kong-born former South China Morning Post reporter has climbed the highest volcano on each continent in a record time of just five months in memory of her father, who lost his battle against cancer in 2008.

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Sophie on an acclimatisation hike near Ojos del Salado, Chile. Photo: Sophie Cairns

Published: 5:00am, 23 Jun 2014Updated: 8:50pm, 23 Jun 2014

A Hong Kong-born former reporter has climbed the highest volcano on each continent in a record time of just five months in memory of her father, who lost his battle against cancer in 2008.

Sophie Cairns, 35, reached the summit of the dormant Mount Elbrus in Russia's Western Caucasus mountain range on June 10, bringing to a close the challenge she started in December.

Previous attempts have taken well over a year, she said. In the process, Cairns raised nearly £6,000 (HK$79,000) of a £7,000 target for Cancer Research UK.

Sophie and friend Tina Bowman at the summit of the final volcano, Mount Elbrus in Russia. Photo: Sophie Cairns

Sophie and her friend Tina Bowman on an acclimatisation hike on Mount Cheget, Russia, as preparation for climbing Mount Elbrus. Photo: Sophie Cairns

"I was working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Shanghai when my father suddenly got ill in April 2008," Cairns said. "He was finally diagnosed with esophageal cancer."

The cancer affects the tube linking the throat to the stomach and kills about 400,000 people a year, with about half of all cases occurring in China. Her father, Richard Taylor, died that September aged 64, two weeks after being diagnosed with the condition. "He went very quickly," said Cairns. "It was a massive shock."

Sophie at the summit of the highest volcano in North America, Pico de Orizaba in Mexico, 5,636m. Photo: Sophie Cairns

Sophie on a lunch break on the 20-mile hike in to the base camp of Mount Giluwe, Papua New Guinea. Photo: Sophie Cairns

Cairns, who left the in 2004, then saw only two options: "Either you go on being more and more depressed, in which case you can't help anybody including yourself, or you conquer the depression in a concrete way."

With no prior climbing experience, she and a group of friends from Hong Kong set out to climb the 5,895 metres to the top of Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, in September 2009. Cairns went on to climb a mountain a year.