Mark Hughes will return to Mount Everest this year in his latest bold effort to raise money for his brain cancer foundation.
The two-time premiership winner with the Newcastle Knights was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2013.
He and wife Kirralee started the Mark Hughes Foundation in a bid to boost research efforts and survival rates.
The foundation hit the $30 million fundraising milestone last year, eight years after it was formed.
The couple hope to raise another $5 million this year.
As part of that push, they launched the foundation's latest beanies for brain cancer campaign this week to coincide with the start of winter.
Hughes, now 46, says he is feeling good.
"I train four to six times a week," he said.
He trains at his AirLocker gym at Kotara and with former teammates.
"And each year, I have a trek to look forward to. In the lead up to that, I ramp my training up again," he said.
"It's played such an important role in the ongoing fight that I have."
Every four months, he goes to Royal North Shore Hospital for an MRI and to see his specialist in Sydney.
"Every four months, we hold our breath and hope he gets a clear scan," Kirralee said.
"Unfortunately with brain cancer, the majority of the time it does come back more aggressively. You just don't know when.
"Mark is doing really well at the moment. He's fit and healthy and has the strongest attitude. He's charging along."
It was former teammates and close friends Billy Peden and Paul Harragon who first backed a big challenge to help raise money and awareness for the foundation.
Peden phoned Harragon on Christmas Day, saying "I want to do something for Hughesy and I want to do it great," Harragon told the Newcastle Herald in 2016.
Since then, they've completed treks on the Kokoda Track, Mount Kilimanjaro, to base camp at Mount Everest and in Borneo.
They also did a long bike ride in Darwin during COVID.
"The next trip in October, we're going back to Everest but a bit higher this time," Hughes said.
They'll trek to Island Peak in the Himalayas of eastern Nepal.
Hughes said the treks have to be challenging, particularly because "people give us their hard-earned money to do that".
"All the trekkers pay their own way and raise money. It's very special."
Hughes said he was "very proud the girls have got into it".
"The girls were sick of hearing how good and hard our treks were. They saw the bonds we made.
"They were ready to do it and they did a brilliant job. They'll do one next year as well."
Kirralee led an all-female trek to Tasmania in April that raised more than $300,000.
It involved about 20 women, including a brain cancer patient.
"Bec heard about the foundation and wanted to get on board," Kirralee said.
"It was lovely to trek down there. We had to try it and there was a lot of interest."
Also in April, Hughes completed the Kokoda Track with sons Zac, 18, and Dane, 15.
"I wanted the boys to experience it," he said.
"I was very grateful that two former teammates Steve Crowe and Matt Gidley, lifelong mates, wanted to do the same thing with their kids.
"It wasn't a fundraiser, it was just us spending quality time with our kids. I wanted them to be challenged and learn about culture."
Kirralee said it was "special for them to do that".
"It was just to enjoy the time with the boys. It's something they will really cherish and remember forever," she said.
She said her husband aims to live every moment.
"He has more get up and go in him than me. He doesn't slow down," she said.
Even during radiation and chemotherapy treatment, he exercised.
Following surgery in late 2013 to remove an avocado-sized tumour from his brain, he had 33 radiotherapy sessions over six weeks, then six months of chemotherapy.
"He would come home and go straight to Merewether baths and do laps," Kirralee said.
Hughes felt he had to do it.
"It made me feel better," he said.
"I did some interval running, swimming and yoga to make my body and mind as fit as possible."
To see more stories and read today's paper download the Newcastle Herald news app here.
