A LOCAL woman has gone to the highest heights to raise money in the memory of her father and for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Lucy Rivers Bulkeley, from Bosherston, climbed Mount Everest last month in memory of her father, the late Lt. Col Johnny Bulkeley, of Castlemartin Ranges.

When Lt. Col Bulkeley died from cancer in 2007, Lucy was determined to raise funds for the Macmillan nurses, who had been such a help to him.

"Climbing Everest would have been his idea of hell, he'd never have gone near a desert or a mountain," Lucy said.

She said that climbing Everest was the latest in a series of extreme challenges she has undertaken to raise money for Macmillan.

The first challenge Lucy undertook was with her sister, where they ran across a desert.

Since then she has become the first European woman to complete the grand slam of Racing the Planet's Four Deserts series (Gobi Desert – driest, Atacama – highest, Sahara – hottest, Antarctica – coldest) and has climbed the highest mountain on six out of seven continents.

Lucy now plans to rest up before she thinks about doing the final summit challenge, Vinson, a mountain in Antarctica.

"It will be a lot of food and sleep, no exercise, I can't face the gym just yet," Lucy said.

"I have climbed six of the seven summits so I'll do a big fundraising boost for the last one, but I'm not thinking about it right now."

"I landed back from Everest about two weeks ago.

"The trip was incredible, but I'm very pleased to back at sea level. I was lucky to make it to the top and not have had any frostbite and I still have all my digits intact.

"Everest was definitely the hardest challenge I've done, it's the altitude and the extremes."

Over the years Lucy has raised £46,559 for Macmillan, with an ultimate goal of raising £75,000 for the charity.

Read Lucy’s blog on lucyrb.com, or visit justgiving.com/lucyrb to donate.