Alan Hinkes aims to be the first Briton to climb all the world's fourteen 8,000m peaks. This spring, he climbed Dhaulagiri and has only one left: Kanchenjunga.

"I am on the final bend of the final lap," says the 50-year-old climber, who started his odyssey in 1987 after climbing Xixapangma, the 8,046m peak which lies just inside Tibet and is visible from Kathmandu Valley. Since then, he has climbed all the 8000m peaks in the Pakistani Karakoram, and all the 8,000-ers in Nepal except Kanchenjunga.

"Kanchenjunga is not easy, it is more difficult than Mt Everest," Hinkes said in Kathmandu this week, after coming down off Dhaulagiri. He expects to make his Kanchenjunga bid next spring. So far, only 12 people have completed the grand slam of climbing all the world's 8,000m peaks, of which eight are located in Nepal.