KEVIN Sharp scaled considerable heights in his first season as head coach with Worcestershire in achieving Vitality Blast finals day success and reaching the semi-finals of the Royal London One-Day.

Now Sharp will again be aiming high off the field as he and wife Janette undertake an 18-day trek in the Himalayas which includes travelling to the base camps of the third highest mountain in the world Mount Kangchenjunga.

Sharp says it is the ideal way to refresh the mind and recharge the batteries ahead of reporting back for pre-season training with the County in November and it will be the fourth time he has undertaken such an adventure.

He said: “It sounds a bit mad doesn’t it? You think the normal thing might be to go and lie on a beach for a fortnight.

“But my wife Janette and I, we go to the Himalayas. She introduced me to hiking when I finished playing and it’s a wonderful form of exercise.

“We finished up just exploring more and more. We started off in the Lake District and the Dales and then Scotland, Snowdonia, the Brecons – and then suddenly we go overseas.

“We’ve had a hiking holiday in the Annapurnas, then we went to Bhutan a couple of years ago, again the Himalayan mountains, and then last year we did a bit more of Annapurnas but also partly the Mount Everest base camp trail.

“We actually thought that might be it for the long-haul hiking but a couple of friends of ours contacted us and we will undergo the most strenuous trip we’ve ever done.

“We are going to the north and south base camps of the Kangchenjunga mountain which is the third highest in the world.

“We are doing an 18-day trek, sleeping in tea houses and tents for 18 days at an altitude of 16,000 feet.

“It will start slowly with a three or four-hour day and it will build up and you will gradually get higher and when we get to the base camps there are days of nine hours of hiking.”

Sharp added: “It helps me to switch off from cricket. I’m a bit of a nature lover and I do enjoy the outdoors and the fresh air and the peace of these places.

“It is quite a spiritual thing really. You forget this world we live in. There is no TV, no signal on my phone.

“It is well organised with a guide, porters with the mules carrying luggage, a chef and crew. There will be 12 people on the trip.

“I take some books, read, chill out. It’s quite therapeutic – and then I will be raring to go when the lads report back next month.”