Obiter doffs its cap to intrepid trainee solicitor Alice Burch, who has just scaled Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro in aid of volunteer charity VSO.


Ms Burch had something of an uphill struggle before she even got to climb the mountain. The first hurdle was the challenge of raising £3,200 in sponsorship while working full-time as a trainee at Jeremy Marozzi & Co in Wimbledon, London. That was the easy bit. Then her planned route to Tanzania - which involved a ten-hour drive from Nairobi - was scuppered by the violence surrounding Kenya's elections and a foreign office warning to stay away. Plan B involved a new flight route - but she arrived at Heathrow to find the previous flight had just missed the runway.



Ms Burch eventually made it to the foot of the mountain and began the 5,895m trek to Uruhu peak, spending the night in a stinky hut with a headache from the lack of oxygen. But once at the top (pictured), she describes the experience as 'breathtaking' and 'like being in a David Attenborough documentary'. So presumably, Ms Burch is now ready to put her feet up and assume the rather more sedentary lifestyle of most of the rest of her chosen profession? Not quite. She is running the London Marathon in April.