This week, Alan Hinks sets off on an expedition in which he could achieve what no Briton has done before: climb all 14 of the world's five-mile high mountains. He tells Nick Morrison why his 18-year trek is more about grit than obsession.

IN between expeditions, you can still find Alan Hinkes back where it all began, some 34 years ago. It was there, on the North York Moors at Scugdale, near the village of Swainby, that he caught the bug which has put him on the verge of making history. And it's still as infectious as it was then.

"I still love climbing. I can go up Scugdale now and go up the outcrops. They're only 20-30ft, but all you can hear is the sheep bleating and the grouse clucking and I can be as happy as I was when I was a teenager. And I will still enjoy it when I'm much older," he promises

In a few weeks' time, Alan will be attempting something much bigger than a 30ft outcrop. This week, he sets off for Kanchenjunga, on the border of Nepal and India. At 28,169ft, it is the third highest mountain in the world, but to Alan it is much more than that: it is the final leg on an 18-year odyssey

At the age of 50, he is aiming to join a club as elite as that of those who have walked on the moon, and become only the 12th man, and the first Briton, to conquer all 14 of the world's five-mile high, or 8,000 metre, mountains. Kanchenjunga is the last of the 14.

He knows this will probably be the most perilous expedition of his life. It's not just the altitude, lethal though that could be, or the treacherous climb. The danger lies as much in knowing the end is so close.

"Most people who try to do all 14 get killed on the 13th or 14th," he acknowledges. "You have got to be prepared to turn back. There will be a lot of temptation to push on this year, for sure. It will be very hard to turn back because I know I will have to go through all this rigmarole again next spring if I don't do it, all this physical and mental effort.

'I have got to weigh the risk up, the pain in my head, of taking a higher risk, against the pain of coming back again."

After a week in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, he will fly to the kingdom's eastern edge, before trekking to Kanchenjunga base camp. Accompanied by around 30 porters, carrying tents and five weeks' worth of food - including 30kg of potatoes, 30kg of eggs - he will set off on the ten-14 day hike to base camp. Acclimatising to the altitude takes several weeks, although poor weather could see him stuck at base camp for days at a time.

"You have got to have a certain mentality, be able to entertain yourself. You can't just jump in your car and go somewhere," he says. "You have a tent you can't stand up in and your whole world is an area the size of a football field."

Once he's acclimatised he will set off on his ascent, accompanied by one Nepalese climber and two Swiss. He reckons it will take three days to get up and two to get down but at that altitude survival is limited to just a few days anyway and rescue is impossible.

"Above 8,000 there is nothing anyone can do. It really is quite committing, which is possibly why I like it," he says.

"I have always liked a bit of suffering. In cross country at school (Northallerton Grammar) I couldn't understand why the other lads wanted to skive off. I thought it was great. It didn't feel like suffering to me, splodging through mud or going out in a blizzard.

"I just like testing myself against the elements. But I don't think I'm a masochist, I do like the nice things in life, a nice glass of wine," he adds hastily.

His mention of commitment is curious, though, for its resonance in his life outside of climbing. Although he takes a photo of his 21-year-old daughter, Fiona, and her 21-month-old son, to the top of every mountain he summits, his absences were clearly an issue when Fiona was growing up.

"You are not giving your family as much time as you want. I would be away for up to three months, and that hurt her as much as it hurt me, but that is me, I suppose," he shrugs.

The danger was also a worry for his daughter, particularly after a number of climbing deaths in the mid-90s. For his part, Alan can block out the risk, but there's no escaping it altogether.

"You have to accept a certain amount of risk, and the more of these mountains I've done, the more aware I've become," he says. "I hesitate to say the more scared I've become, that sounds dramatic, but certainly I have got more trepidation."

He climbed his first 8,000 metre peak, Shisha Pangma, in 1987, but it was another nine years before the prospect of scaling all 14 became a possibility.

After reaching the top of K2 at the third attempt in 1995, he climbed Everest the following year, as well as Gasherbrum I and II. Within 12 months he had got four under his belt, bringing his total to eight. Suddenly, all 14 became an enticing target.

"At that point only three people had ever done it, and I thought I could be the fourth person ever. It was a great challenge to do. I thought it was about time a Brit did it," he says, before checking himself. "Actually, I didn't think that. I just wanted to do it for myself. Now I think it is about time a Brit did it."

Even though another eight people have since beaten him to it, and a further two climbers are on 13, that will not take away the enormity of his achievement should he succeed. But he is unswerving in his conviction that no mountain is worth a life, even though his repeated attempts on K2 - the second highest mountain and judged the hardest to climb - raised a few eyebrows in climbing circles.

"It took three years of my life, and I remember a lot of people were starting to say I was obsessed with it. I said 'What is wrong with being obsessed?'," he says, before adding: "I don't think it was an obsession. I just think it was true Yorkshire grit."

Despite his reputation as a cautious climber, he may have succumbed to the temptation to push on as he ascended Dhaulagiri last year. He originally assessed the avalanche risk on a slope as 50 per cent, then revised it downwards to ten per cent, and went ahead. Only afterwards did he realise what he'd done.

"When I got to base camp I was burned out mentally as well as physically. It was not until I got back to Britain that I thought 'Bloody hell, that was a ten per cent chance'. That was too high a risk, but for some reason I was prepared to accept it," he recalls, still amazed at himself.

He's always had a natural fitness, although he admits he takes it a bit slower coming down now, on account of his knees. He eats healthily too - his house near Northallerton contains no processed food.

This will be his third attempt on Kanchenjunga. Too much fresh snow thwarted him in 2000, and in 2003 he contracted a virus.

Even if he gets to the top this time, he knows it is not all over until he is safely back at base camp, eating his traditional egg, chips and chapati with a cup of milky tea. And then? He tacitly admits there is a sense in which he has been consumed by the 8,000 metre challenge.

"I will feel freedom to do what I want," he says. "I have got other goals, and I definitely want to enjoy rock climbing more and be able to do things that are less dangerous but still challenging."

But before that there is the 28,169ft matter of Kanchenjunga, the looming challenge.

"What do I get from it? I've been asked that a lot but I don't know. It is just me. If you cut me in half it would say mountain climber. It is just what I like doing.

"I don't want to die. I don't have a death wish. It does enhance my life. The older you get the more you want to live," he says.

But while some would call it an obsession, Alan is standing by his Yorkshire grit. And if anything is going to help him make history, it will be that. "If you have been sticking at it for 18 years you have to have tenacity," he says. "I have just got to hang on in there."