AN OVERTON dad is taking the lead in a four-day challenge planning to hit a £100,000 target to fund research into childhood brain tumours.

Stuart Miners is one of six fathers preparing to scale the height of Mount Everest on skis during a trip to the Alps next month.

The group’s members all have a personal link to families who have lost a child due to brain tumours and Stuart, a coach at Overton Rugby Club, lost a friend to the illness as well as a friend’s nine-year-old son.

The 42-year-old said: “My family and some friends decided to try to help this cause as it is so dramatically underfunded and has so little awareness.

“Knowing the devastating diagnosis that so many children face is what’s driving the team on. It gives us focus to push ourselves to our own limits in order to take on this unique challenge.”

The group has currently raised more than £90,000 for The Brain Tumour Charity.

The funds will go towards the Everest Centre, funded by the charity to research slower-growing paediatric brain tumours which can cause severe long-term health problems for children living with the disease.

Stuart’s team - David Flight, Richard Blacker, James Blacker, Brian Reid and Dominic Del Mar - make up Team Sagarmatha, which is the Sanskrit name for Everest.

It also means ‘Peak of Heaven’ and the father-of-four said it helps the team “remember and honour” friends who were unable to be cured, or are living with the disease.

Stuart said: “Every day they attack their own Everest with courage, strength and a smile.”

The dads have been training with countless 4am workouts and midnight finishes as they prepare for 10 to 14 hour days climbing in their challenge starting on March 5.

The physical energy needed to complete the task is the equivalent of three back-to-back marathons.

Stuart added: “We’ll be sleeping in mountain huts and set out before dawn in temperatures that can drop as low as -30c.

“It will be an epic challenge.

“It is a challenge that you can’t complete without a team around you to give support and drive you through the relentless hours of climbing. But it is also hugely individual when it comes to the training and preparation.

“It’s meant that all the hours, the effort put in even before dawn - and while we’re juggling careers and family lives ourselves - will pay off.

“Ultimately we know why we’re doing it — we know that Everest In The Alps will make a difference and that’s the key to its success.”

To donate go to justgiving.com/fundraising/team-sagarmatha-everest.