author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
The International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) is considering a request from Nepal to reclassify five peaks within the country, and another in Pakistan, as 8000m peaks. But are they worthy of the name, and is there any point? Let’s have a look at the peaks in question.
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Britain’s greatest living mountaineer is currently touring the country with a series of lectures about his life, and I was lucky enough to see one of them. An important World Cup qualifier was taking place that evening, but if Chris Bonington’s life were a football match it would be a 22 goal thriller which ended 11 goals all and went into extra time.
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If a climber reaches the top of a mountain and no one is around to see them, have they reached the summit? Lots of people make false summit claims, for all sorts of reasons, so how can you be sure? Here are some of the ways of proving a summit claim.
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There has been a flurry of books about Everest published this year to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the first ascent. This one stands out because it challenges many widely held beliefs and provides a very different perspective of the 1953 expedition than most other accounts.
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Variable snow conditions mean summits of mountains can differ from year to year. One mountain whose summit is unrecognisable from when it was first climbed in 1956 is Manaslu in Nepal. Its summit has changed so much that modern mountaineers could almost be climbing a different mountain.
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Some people think adventure is dead because most of the world has now been explored, and there aren’t many genuine firsts in exploration still remaining. But is this true, or is it just the meaning of adventure that needs to be redefined?
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Two mountains in Nepal are to be named after Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, according to a number of baffling media reports last week. Is this really true, and what mountains are they? Once again I will rummage through the detritus of mainstream media waffle, and try to shed some light on the story.
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Good weather was forecast in the Welsh hills last weekend, so I headed up to Snowdonia, where I completed a fine circular walk of Snowdon via the Llanberis Path and the long whale-backed ridge of Moel Eilio. I expected it to be busy, but not as busy as the media would have you believe.
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Our lives are such a constant quest to get somewhere that sometimes we fail to appreciate where we are. By far the most common question I get asked is ‘what’s next?’, but isn’t where we are and where we’ve been much more meaningful?
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Climbing purists should look away now. This post is for those with a more laid back approach to getting up mountains. I thought it might be interesting to compare some of the world’s high mountains to see how far you can get up them using mechanical transport, and so I give you the Mountains for Cheating infographic.
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