Phoebe and her two fellow adventurers prepare for their Extreme Sleep

Phoebe and her two fellow adventurers prepare for their Extreme Sleep

An adventurer and author who wrote a book on Extreme Sleeps is about to embark on a 10-day charity challenge putting the idea into practice.

Phoebe Smith will join two others suspended from some of Britain’s best loved landmarks to raise cash for Centrepoint.

Ms Smith, rigging specialist Ollie Laker and emergency medicine doctor and rope specialist John Pike will be sleeping out on portaledges – usually used by mountaineers tackling big walls and multi-pitch, multi-day routes.

The trio will pitch their suspended sleep cots from a series of man-made and natural structures, from the northernmost reaches of Scotland to the south coast of England.

They hope to raise £20,000 for Centrepoint, which helps homeless young people.

Ms Smith said: “We’ve deliberately chosen to take on this challenge and sleep in some very strange places but the reason we’re doing this is to help those who don’t have a choice about where they spend the night.

“I’ve had periods of my life where things have been unstable and I’ve had to rely on the kindness of friends putting me up because I didn’t have anywhere to stay. Sometimes that little bit of help can make all the difference, which is why we’ve chosen to support Centrepoint.

“Their work is proof that if a young person gets support at the right time, homelessness doesn’t have to define his or her life.

“All the venues are supremely iconic in one way or another. It will be a real physical challenge getting to some of the places we need to get to. But even if doing this stops one more person having to sleep somewhere cold, wet and miserable, then it will be completely worth it as far as the three of us are concerned.”

The team is not revealing the individual locations until the day of each Extreme Sleep. They will use social media to inform the public where they intend to sleep out.

The venture begins on Wednesday and is planned to finish on 29 July.

Volvo Car UK is supporting this feat by loaning the team an XC90 T8 twin engine plug-in hybrid SUV to help them get between sites.

The team has set up a JustGiving page and donations can also be made by texting CAMP64 to 70070. £10 will be donated to Centrepoint.

Updates can be found using @PhoebeRSmith and @CentrepointUK on social media and searching for the hashtag #ExtremeSleepOut.

Some articles the site thinks might be related:

  1. Seven-year-old Wilf to tackle seven tors to help dad’s soldiers
  2. Aberdyfi rescuers say ill prepared charity walkers transfer burden to teams