From the Himalayas to Helvellyn

So why is he preparing for a winter walking up the relatively humble slopes of Helvellyn? Because of his latest challenge: parenthood.

Zac’s partner Sarah is due to have their first child this week. “Pretty excited,” is Zac’s take on becoming a father, aged 42. “It’s a whole new challenge. I have quite a few friends in similar positions. They’ve been playing their whole lives, and then family comes along.

“It might change my view on risk a bit. Working as a guide for years, my attitude to risk is pretty sound anyway. I’m not a risk-taker. It’s about being safe in that environment.

“I’ve still got big plans. I think the quality of what I do will be the same. The quantity won’t be. More time at home. I don’t want to miss the little one growing up. I know a lot of guides have maybe regretted the amount of time they spent away from family.”

Zac is joining Jon Bennett and Graham Uney as one of the Lake District National Park’s fell-top assessors. Each day from December to Easter, one of them will climb Helvellyn to provide weather updates and safety advice for walkers and climbers.

“My first winter climbing was on Helvellyn,” says Zac. “I used to ring to get the voice message from the fell-top assessors. Doing that job has always been at the back of my mind. Part of it is being available to people on the mountain and running winter skills courses.”

Sounds good... but isn’t Helvellyn a little tame after Everest and other peaks in the Himalayas, Antarctica, Africa and South America?

“It’s still a 900-metre mountain,” he points out. “And it’s fitted in nicely with my family situation. Normally now I’d be off to Antarctica for three months to guide people on expeditions. That wouldn’t have gone down too well at the moment!”

Helvellyn is a reasonable commute from home in Caldbeck. Zac spent his first four years in Australia before his British parents moved back. People occasionally say they can hear a bit of Oz in his accent. This is usually a neutral tone, delivered in the steady manner you might expect from someone responsible for keeping people alive.

After growing up in Hampshire, Zac came to Cumbria to work with the Outward Bound Trust at Ullswater. He began mountain climbing in the Lake District. Early inspiration for adventure had included the Scouts and his father’s mountaineering books. “My dad was an armchair mountaineer. I used to look at his books when I was a kid. Chris Bonington’s Everest: The Hard Way - he’s one of my inspirations, and now I live around the corner from him.”

In 2011 Zac reached the top of the world himself, leading an expedition which put 18 climbers on Everest’s summit.

“Everest is what most people ask about. It was a really successful trip. Eighteen folk on the summit. No major dramas. I made some lifelong friends. Everest has become very commercial. The people it’s attracting are changing. On my trip three or four were climbers. The rest would describe themselves as adventurers. For a lot of people it’s about ticking the summits off and telling people about it.

“I had a really good experience. We were the only team there. I spent 45 minutes on the summit by myself. It was a bit surreal with the hypoxia [oxygen deprivation]. It’s such a strange memory, looking back. It was something I’d always wanted to climb. I was guiding. There was a lot of pressures on me. For a lot of it, it was just like any other mountain. The same challenges. The same group dynamics. But I was very aware that I couldn’t go any higher.”

Or, potentially, fall any further. This was Zac’s last expedition with a sherpa he’d worked with several times. A sherpa who was killed in an avalanche two years later.

“I’d done nearly 10 trips with him. I counted him as a friend. He was very skilled. Very strong. Just a really nice human being. He was just very unlucky. Wrong place, wrong time. This is the risk we all take.

“I know quite a few people who have died. Probably more of them in road accidents than climbing. If you’re doing a good job as a guide you’re keeping people safe.”

Zac studies weather forecasts; analyses the environment; assesses his clients’ fitness. And he knows that nature can defy any amount of expertise and experience.

“I have been avalanched,” he says. “I took a big ride in Greenland, about 400 feet. We came down the mountain rather rapidly, myself and the two guys I was with.

“We were pretty deep. I remember darkness down there. It was like trying to swim in powerful water, getting thrown around and battered. My arm and head were out of the surface when I stopped. I was able to help them out - we were ok.”

His homework usually pays off, as with an expedition in Scotland. “The plan was to go and climb in a corrie. But there’s lots of clues why you can’t go there. You can see the wind blowing snow into the gully. Overhangs are getting bigger.

“So you have a Plan B. As we went elsewhere we saw climbers in the corrie get avalanched. We helped them. They weren’t badly hurt.”

Zac also guides film crews in exotic locations. His clients have included the epic BBC production Planet Earth II . “I was looking after a crew filming the Himalayan jumping spider. It’s the highest living mammal. And a crew filming eagles over the Alps. You’re getting them into a position that’s safe to film from. Making sure they’re not doing anything silly, like a polar bear’s not coming up behind them.”

Although he enjoys the responsibility of taking others to extremes, there are times when Zac prefers to explore alone.

“That’s very different to guiding. It’s the same environment but it’s probably further apart in my head than people might think. Guiding is definitely a job. I work incredibly hard to keep people safe and to give them the experience they want.

“Solo, you have a slightly different attitude to risk. Most of my running is by myself. That’s ‘me’ time to reflect and come up with the next silly plan.”

Running? In recent years Zac has completed more than 30 ultra-marathons and adventure races, including the Antarctic Ice Marathon and the Bob Graham Round. His longest event was the 192-mile Wainwright Coast to Coast, which took 80 hours.

“The longest I stopped was two hours for food and shut-eye. A lot of the time it’s just about the mental side. It’s 80 per cent mental. You know your body can do it. I can run at a slow pace all day. I’m competitive with myself. I never know what position in a race I’ve come. It’s more about ‘Did I better myself?’

“If you live in the Lakes there’s so many other people doing amazing stuff. It almost becomes the norm. I’m nowhere near the best climber or the best runner. However hardcore you think you are, you soon get put in your place.”

Still, normal life must seem easy to a man who pushes himself as hard as Zac? Not necessarily.

“Normal life is a never-ending list of things to do,” he says. “On an expedition, life is simple. You work towards your goal. All you need is shelter and food. Climbing a mountain, you know what your goal is. You come down, have a beer, and draw a line under it. Life can feel very full-on when you get back. I think that’s why adventuring is getting so popular.”

Zac plans to do more filming, photography, writing... and parenting. At some stage he would like to scratch the itch for adventure again by skiing across Antarctica; a trip he estimates would take him away from it all for 50 days.

“Antarctica is so pristine. It’s such a privilege to be there. You become hyper-aware of what the weather’s doing, how the snow changes under your skis. It’s a form of mindfulness.

“I’ve had a couple of injuries that have stopped me for a while. Now I’m looking at doing things that are less stressful on the body. Years ago it was all about the summits. I’m more interested in journeys now.”