Sir Ranulph is afraid of heights

The Somerset adventurer will climb the mountain's North Face next month - despite his fear of heights - to raise �2m for the British Heart Foundation.

And he has been practising on the rocky cliffs of the gorge in Bristol.

Sir Ranulph suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 2003 but months later broke records by completing seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.

Missing fingers

Sir Ranulph, 61, told the BBC: "It gets a little difficult when I have to hold on with my left hand as I'm short of a few fingers.

"But when you're at high altitudes, because of the lack of oxygen, what would normally be easy becomes very hard anyway. I'm looking forward to it though."

His climbing partner Hadyn Griffiths said: "We've been climbing at least once a month since last September starting on fairly easy routes and building up from there to today's climb which is graded 'hard/very severe'."

In 1993, Sir Ranulph became one of the first men to walk unaided across Antarctica.

Seven years later, severe frostbite dramatically halted this attempt to reach the North Pole after he plunged into freezing water when one of the two sledges he was towing fell through thin ice.