It’s 3:20am as I tiptoe down the creaky stairs of the Buddha Lodge teahouse in Gorak Shep and push the front door open to an icy blast of alpine air.
“Good morning,” says Jonathan Davies, who’s already waiting outside in the dark with two of our Himalayan guides, his headlamp strapped to his head in anticipation of our pre-dawn hike.
The celebrated Welsh rugby player and I have been trekking in Nepal for the last eight days with a small group pulled together by his friend and mentor, Rhys David, the new CEO of EverTrek, an adventure company that Davies has recently become a brand ambassador for.
Yesterday, we finally reached Everest Base Camp, at 17,598ft (5,364m) above sea level, where we hugged, high-fived, and clambered giddily onto a famous boulder for a group photo. After an hour or so ogling the Khumbu icefall and the smattering of yellow tents that remain late in climbing season when most mountaineers have summited or been repelled by the mountain one way or another, we hiked back down to Gorak Shep to spend the night before beginning our descent.
Before we do that, though, Davies and I have opted in to an excruciating alpine start to climb another 1,000ft (300m) higher than Base Camp up Kala Patthar to watch the sun rise over Everest and Lhotse. Our trekking companions have, quite sensibly, chosen to remain in bed.
The last scrum
The 37-year-old, affectionately known as 'Foxy' – a nickname he tells me people are often disappointed to learn he only earned because his parents owned the Fox and Hound Pub in Carmarthenshire and nothing more salacious – recently retired from a hugely successful 18-year rugby career. After signing with the Llanelli Scarlets immediately out of high school, his impressive stint saw him play for Wales 96 times, as well as in four Six Nations tournaments, two grand slams, and two Lions tours.
There’s a bigger purpose in my life now.
Jonathan 'Fox' Davies
In May of 2024, right around the time his first son was born, Davies played his last game with the Scarlets, and decided to take a break to spend time with his growing family and think about his next move.
“I’ve been around for so much more than a lot of new dads get, and that’s the most important thing,” says Davies.
“There’s a bigger purpose in my life now. So it was great timing.”
After nearly six months, he says he knew that the more time he spent off the pitch, the more he realized he didn’t miss the game. Davies announced his retirement from the sport in October 2024, and tells me he did so without any regrets or reservations.
“I look back at my career and there’s not much else I could have done, so I’m happy, very fortunate.”
A fox on the trot
When we begin our starlit march across the high alpine desert terrain to Kala Patthar, it’s been almost exactly a year since his last game, and if you’ve been watching him play for a long time, it shows. In a 2024 interview with the BBC, Scarlets head coach Dwayne Peel describes the first time he set eyes on Davies when he made his debut aged 18.
"There was a lot of talk of this kid coming through from Bancyfelin, and when he turned up to training, he was a monster," says Peel.
"It was a shock because of how big he was physically. He was more developed than most of the senior team.”
When he turned up to training, he was a monster.
Scarlets head coach Dwayne Peel
Though he’s still dedicated to physical conditioning – one of the first things he does when we get back to Kathmandu after 11 days of trekking is hit the hotel gym – with the intense training of his professional days behind him, he’s slimmed down to 210lb (95kg). But this lighter version of Davies turns out to be as strong and nimble as ever, and no less afraid of a challenge.
“I had one eye on Kala Patthar the whole time because it was that little bit higher than Base Camp, and I wanted to see if it would stress me,” he tells me of his decision to take our guides up on the optional extra hike.
Breaking the elastic
The walk up Kala Patthar itself is relatively short, with just over a mile of climbing, but in that time, we gain more than 1,300ft (396m) in elevation, and we’re quickly subdued into a breathless silence.
As minutes tick by, the silhouettes of Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse, Pumori, Ama Dablam, and more start to loom out of the receding darkness, and I become aware of a growing distance between myself and the rugby player. Perhaps I expected to have an edge over him, what with my many decades of experience trekking around the world, but as we near the ridgeline and every breath becomes an effort, I can’t help but slow down while he digs in. In professional cycling, something we’re both big fans of, there’s a term for this: “breaking the elastic”.
Knowing that sunrise is mere minutes away and if he keeps slowing down for my sake, he could miss it, I give Davies the nod, and within seconds, the elastic is in shreds, he and one of our guides have all but disappeared from view as they scurry up to a radio tower that marks the highest point. Myself and our remaining guide clamber weakly up to a ridgeline where I plop down on a frosty rock, my heart pounding, and watch the snow on the biggest mountains on earth turn dusky pink.
“The size of the whole mountain range is just breath taking, but I think Kala Patthar was the exclamation mark on it all,” says Davies later, after we’ve regrouped, met up with our trekking companions, and walked another eight miles down to Dingboche to spend the night.
A love of the outdoors
For fans used to seeing Davies scoring tries and spot-blitzing in his ever-present scrum cap (something his mother insisted he wear after his family witnessed a rugby player losing an ear during a tackle in a freak accident), images of him wearing hiking boots from The North Face might seem like something of a departure. But for those who know him, seeing Davies getting outdoors more these days is no surprise.
“When I’m outdoors, whether I’m on a mountain or in the woodlands, even on the beach, I feel calm. I wouldn’t say I’m uptight, but it just seems to take me away from everything else.”
Davies and his wife, Lou, first got bitten by the outdoor bug in 2019, during a nearly month-long trip to America’s west coast, where they discovered the tumbling waterfalls of Yosemite, endless salt flats of Death Valley, and glittering Lake Tahoe.
I just feel so comfortable when I’m with the family outdoors
Jonathan 'Fox' Davies
In Vancouver, the couple did the Grouse Grind, a popular fitness challenge where hikers see how quickly they can cover a 1.8-mile ascent with 2,800ft (853m) of elevation gain – something they enjoyed so much they did it again to beat their previous time a couple of years later when they returned to the Canadian Rockies on their honeymoon.
“I just feel so comfortable when I’m with the family outdoors or with friends exploring new areas of the world,” says Davies, who spent months before our trek training in the mountains of north Wales and on the trails of Cornwall with his son loaded up in an Osprey carrier.
“If I’m doing something, I really focus and try to get the full benefit from it.”
Reaching new heights
Despite his efforts in the lead up to the trek, Davies is the first to admit that spending nearly two weeks walking over 80 miles without a rest day and at high altitude is a totally different ball game to his previous adventures.
“This is on a far bigger scale than anything I’ve done before,” he tells me.
Trekking to the foot of Everest via the standard Khumbu Valley route we’ve taken isn’t exactly technical, but it requires, at minimum, six hours of hiking each day carrying a backpack, the dexterity to leap off the trail at any moment to avoid the sharp horns of a herd of yak, and the effects of ever-decreasing oxygen levels. At Kala Pattahr, we’re getting 50 percent less oxygen with each breath than we’d get down at sea level back in the UK.
“You can train as hard as you want, but you just don’t know how altitude is going to treat you, so that was a real worry of mine,” says Davies, who says he was "apprehensive" as to how he'd react after his days at rugby training camps in Switzerland. He knows from experience that altitude can be an unpredictable beast no matter how conditioned you are.
Of course, at camps with altitude-adjusted rooms, players can simply open their hotel room doors to get more oxygen after a long day of training. Here in Nepal, there’s no such option, and none of our group, guides included, escapes the crushing headaches, racing heart, and broken sleep that increasing altitude bestows upon the intrepid Base Camp hiker.
Big deep breaths outdoors
I’ve spent a lot of the last eight days looking at Davies’ calf muscles. Not because I’m a creep, but because he’s generally towards the front of the pack. Davies walks steadily, day after day, head up and unencumbered by the trekking poles most of the rest of us rely on.
His demeanor is steady, too. He’s happy to join the banter, even when it’s at his expense (he earns the nickname “Peter Andre” owing to a physique that could put the 1990s Australian pop star to shame). He’s just as at ease with more serious conversation, periods of silence and reflection.
“I’m very comfortable in my own skin,” he says. “I never wanted attention.”
Davies isn’t immune to the challenges an experience like this poses (though he may hide it better than the rest of us), but his years on the pitch have also reinforced a certain in-built resilience that’s a huge merit when you’re walking through this unforgiving landscape. He views the demands as an opportunity for self-inquiry rather than grumbling, and this is one of the things he says he loves most about exploring the outdoors.
“You have time to think about things, process things, it helps with your next steps, and it clears your mind.”
When I ask him if he thinks hiking could help professional athletes bridge the gap between structured days and constant time in spotlight to the new life that awaits them after retirement, he’s keen not to downplay the importance of mentorship, but adds that in some ways, hiking can be “like cheap therapy” that could be hugely beneficial for retiring athletes.
“Just going for a walk with friends and talking things through, that helps. I think it gives you a connection to yourself. There’s nothing more refreshing than big deep breaths outdoors.”
Foxy's kit for Everest Base Camp
- Ayacucho merino wool base layer
- Montane Fireball Lite softshell jacket
- Montane Anti Freeze XT down jacket
- The North Face Hedgehog hiking boots
- Osprey Talon 33 backpack
