A new start after 60: backpacking in the Himalayas, I found the courage to change my life

After two decades of work, work and more work, Ann Halloran decided it was time to leave her comfort zone. And it all began with a broken walking stick

One day last September, Ann Halloran made her way to her nearest bus stop in Hove, East Sussex, with a 15kg rucksack. She had done plenty of travelling but, at 65, was setting off alone on her first backpacking adventure. Somewhere between her first stop in Turkey and her final destination – a yoga retreat in Mazunte, Mexico – she found a new perspective.

In Nepal, climbing the 5,400m (17,575ft) Gokyo Ri in the Himalayas, Halloran broke her walking stick. She has osteoporosis, which makes bones more likely to break, so the stick was an essential piece of trekking kit in the mountains. Losing it was a blow, but she found reserves of inner strength: “I challenged myself,” she says. The setback was surmountable, a new stick was found. “It gave me confidence that at my age I could go up to that height.” Now, she says: “Whenever I get scared, I think of myself on top of that mountain, looking out over Lake Gokyo – and beyond that, Everest. I say, if you can do that, you can do anything.”