FORMER Bath Travel boss Stephen Bath will be taking on a gruelling 50-mile trek to Mount Everest Base Camp next week.

Stephen, who has already scaled Mount Kilimanjaro for charity, has put together a team of seven people from the travel industry to raise £30,000 for the Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool.

They'll be jetting off to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu next Friday (Sept 28), before boarding a light aircraft to the village of Lukla, which nestles 9,400ft high in the Himalayas.

Stephen, from Christchurch, told the Daily Echo: "It is known as the most dangerous airport in the world on account of its runway being only 600 yards long and sloping steeply uphill.

"It is far too steep to have any roads - everything at Lukla has been flown in."

From there they have a 50-mile uphill hike, over eight days, to Everest Base Camp, which sits at 17,500ft - more than 3,500ft higher than Europe's highest peak, Mount Blanc.

At these heights climbers have to contend with altitude sickness, moving up into the mountains gradually each day.

The team will be travelling with 20 Sherpas and guides, sleeping in stone huts along the way.

Stephen, who climbed Africa's highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, for Alder Hey Children's Hospital in 2015, explained: "I've been training well. The most notable thing is I haven't had an alcoholic drink since September 1, so I'll be doing 28 days without a drink.

"Not because I need it for fitness, but because I don't want to carry two buckets of water up the mountain for 50 miles, which would be the excess weight."

The Alder Hey Children's Hospital is the official charity of the Institute of Travel and Tourism, of which Stephen is a board member.

He first decided to raise money for the hospital after a visit to see the work they do there in 2014.

Stephen said: "Alder Hey is the biggest children's hospital in Europe and they do amazing work.

"I'm pretty confident because I've already been higher, by about 2,000ft and either you can take it or you cannot.

"What is interesting about altitude issues is that there is very little linkage between supreme physical fitness and the ability to take altitude."

Either search for Stephen Bath Everest on the just giving webpage or go to justgiving.com/fundraising/stephenbath1 to donate.