Teesside man to take on gruelling 30-hour challenge in memory of mum
Dean Smith will climb the height of Everest on Roseberry Topping this weekend
A Teesside man's preparing to take on a gruelling 30-hour challenge this weekend in memory of his mum who died from blood cancer.
41 year-old Dean Smith from New Marske will begin climbing the iconic Roseberry Topping around 50 times at around 6am tomorrow (Saturday 5th September) and plans to keep moving throughout the day, night and into Sunday, with no sleep, until he has climbed approximately 8,849 metres – the height of the Everest the world’s highest mountain.
Roseberry Topping and the surrounding area are somewhere he remembers visiting with his mum, Denise, as a child.
Dean said: “I went there with Mum as a kid. We used to drive out for days together – we’d go up Roseberry Topping, over to Captain Cook’s Monument, stop at Great Ayton for an ice cream and a Petch’s pie, then sit by the river and feed the ducks. It’s all those nostalgic things you remember, so that whole area means a lot to me. To be taking this on there, in Mum’s memory, makes it even more special.”
Denise was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a form of blood cancer, in 2018. Over the following four years she experienced serious health complications, including sepsis, before dying on 30th May 2022.
Since then, Dean has thrown himself into a series of increasingly difficult fundraising challenges for Blood Cancer UK as well as a dementia charity this year.
“My mam was the toughest person I’ve ever known, she could turn the darkest moments into something positive. This is the best way I know how to honour her – by challenging myself in her name. Whenever I’m on those dark, tough climbs, I remember my mam’s strength. If she could battle through what she did, I can push through too.”
“I thought, what could be bigger than what I’ve done before And I thought: Everest. This is the only way I can do Everest without actually going to Everest. If I set off at three or four in the morning, I’ll go all the way through 24 hours and I reckon it will be about 30 hours of continuous movement. I’ll see the sunrise, go right the way through, see another sunrise and hopefully finish around midday on the Sunday. I’m going to be absolutely knackered by that point. Quite a few people want to come and do the final climb with me, and I think that’s when I’m going to need them the most.”
Dean is still living with a hernia and suffered a back injury earlier this year which stopped him running for several weeks and kept him out of the swimming pool for around eight weeks. He only began properly building his training back up in July.
After taking 2025 away from his own major fundraising challenges, Dean has also lost more than three stone since January as he prepares for his return.
He added: “I had three years where, since Mum passed away, it was fundraising, fundraising, fundraising. 2024 was massive, but it kind of broke me. Last year was mine and my wife Leanne’s 40th birthdays, our tenth wedding anniversary, and I was supposed to have an operation, so I thought we’d have a year off. But I couldn't have another year off. I wanted to come back and do it again.”
It follows an extraordinary 2024 in which Dean completed a 24-peak challenge through the Lake District, a half Ironman and a bike ride from Loch Ness back to Teesside. The fundraising that year brought in around £10,000 – while thousands more were raised through a community Family Fun Day supported by his family and friends.
This Blood Cancer Awareness month he is raising the bar again. Roseberry Topping is only the beginning of Dean’s Super September. Several days after attempting his Everest challenge, he plans to swim 10,000 metres – 400 lengths of a 25-metre pool – at Saltburn. A few days later he will then begin a five-day, 161-mile journey along Alfred Wainwright’s Coast to Coast route, covering around 30 to 36 miles every day through the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors.
He will finish at Marske-by-the-Sea on Saturday 19th September, where his family and friends will be waiting before a Family Fun Day at New Marske Working Men’s Club. Throughout it all, Dean says his wife Leanne and their wider family are every bit as important to Super September as the person doing the miles.
“Without Leanne I wouldn't be able to do any of this. You've got to have the backup. You can't do it solo. She puts up with a lot – she definitely hates it every time I buy another pair of trainers. And the Family Fun Day is nothing to do with me really. I make the poster and that's about it. Leanne and the family take it and run away with it. They deserve as much credit as I do. If Mum was here now, she'd be telling me I’m stupid, but she'd know why I was doing it.”
Blood cancer is the UK’s fifth most common cancer, and the UK’s third largest cancer killer.
Dean said: “I've fancied Everest before, but then you see the queues of people going up it and I just don't like the idea of queuing on a mountain. I might not get the altitude sickness on 5 September, but I think my legs are going to feel exactly the same.
“Mum fought a long, hard battle. I can't change what happened to her, but I can keep her memory alive and try to turn something awful into something positive. When it gets dark, when it hurts and when I’m wondering why on earth I’m climbing Roseberry Topping again, that's what I'll be thinking about.”
You can support Dean here.