AN INTREPID couple tackled treacherous conditions to scale a Himalayan mountain while raising funds for a good cause.

An impending snowstorm nearly put paid to Julie and Steven Brockbank’s efforts to reach the 20,176-feet summit of Stok Kangri, in northern India.

But they managed to complete the arduous task in memory of Julie’s father Norman Bleese, of Windermere, who died following a heart attack last year.

And the pair, who live at Troutbeck Bridge, collected £2,500 for the British Heart Foundation.

“The conditions were tough. Your body dries out. Breathing was difficult and it was a little bit scary because you had to walk along a ridge to get to the summit.

"It was like a cliff edge with a 20,000-feet drop,” said Mrs Brockbank, an holistic therapist.

But after beating the challenges and reaching the top, their time on the summit had to be cut short.

“The weather was pretty grim to be honest, so we could only stay for about 20 minutes. The six groups behind us had to turn back because of the conditions and if we’d have been 15 minutes later we’d have had to turn back ourselves and wouldn’t have been able to make it. It snowed all night so we wouldn’t have got back there at all,” said Mrs Brockbank.

They travelled with Charity Challenge, the team behind BBC’s recent Comic Relief climb of Kilimanjaro with cele-brities including Gary Barlow of Take That, and spent seven days walking around the mountain to get used to the altitude.

“When you look back, the enormity of what you’ve done sinks in. All in all, it went really well,” Mrs Brockbank said.

The adventurous duo are now plotting their next challenge – they hope to one day scale Europe’s highest peak Mont Blanc, in the Alps.

Mrs Brockbank added: “I think my father would have been worried sick about what we were doing – but he would also have been proud of us.”