author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
Edita was in Africa last week, so last weekend I had a day to myself. What better way to spend it than pulling up YouTube on the TV and spending the evening watching porn… Mountain porn, that is – and I found an absolute gem.
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A short while ago I attended a lecture by the Swiss climber Ueli Steck, known affectionately as the Swiss Machine, and later wrote about how ridiculous his mountaineering career has been. Last week I went to see him again after he had done something even more ridiculous.
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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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There’s no doubt about it, Nepal is opening up, with new areas being explored by trekking agencies every season as the government makes more permits available to encourage tourist income into poorer regions of the country. While the busy Everest
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There are some facts about Mera Peak, one of Nepal’s most popular trekking peaks, that not many people know. This is partly the fault of adventure travel companies offering it as a trip, whose literature can range from vague to
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Must there always be blame when a climber dies on a mountain? I was more than a little upset by something I read on a climbing website recently. This had been the intention of the article, but I was annoyed
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Well, I returned from my last trip to the Himalayas in November, and I’ve just got round to getting my travel diary from my expedition to Cho Oyu online, six months later. Does anyone care? Half the team who might
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While every man and his dog were busy climbing Everest last year, including a 13 year old American boy, a few short miles away a handful of international teams were battling for their lives on Makalu, the world’s 5th highest
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The environmental cost of mountaineering expeditions Base camp on the east side of Baruntse, Nepal, is one of the most breathtaking settings you’re ever likely to come across. Hemmed in by rock walls on two sides, to the west the
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