British explorer reaches Eiger summit

Sir Ranulph Fiennes has reached the summit of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps after a challenge to raise money for the Marie Curie cancer charity.

The 63-year-old explorer spent five days climbing the mountain and described the journey in a blog on his MySpace page.

He wrote: "I knew it was going to be a difficult climb. But I thought it would be more like the practise climbs I have been doing with Kenton around Chamonix and the Alps?just a more difficult version of that. Not the nightmarish thing that it actually was.

"So, much as I am very pleased that we succeeded in getting to the top, and I am really hoping for big money for our charity, to be honest it is more than I would have wanted to have taken on."

Sir Ranulph noted how he broke his rule of not looking down simply because the summit was so vertical and he had to look down for a foothold.

He climbed with both Kenton Cool and Ian Parnell, with the latter saying the trip went well.