author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
This is a poignantly belated book review, if ever there was one. Ed Webster died of a heart attack last month at the age of 66. His book Snow on the Kingdom had been sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read for more than seven years.
Read more
I don’t often accept books for review – not because I’m not interested, but because life is short and there are too many books I want to read. Sometimes, however, I make an exception, like when Robert Anderson offered me a copy of his latest book Nine Lives.
Read more
Many teams climbed the north side of Everest this season, but two seemed to get the lion’s share of the attention. These two teams were using new techniques to shorten their expeditions. But was their approach sensible or effective? Let’s have a look.
Read more
Peak Lenin in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan has been on my radar for many years as a mountain renowned for being very big, but technically straightforward. But as I discovered, technically straightforward is not the same as easy.
Read more
If I’d known about the climbing history of 7134m Peak Lenin, then I might have thought twice about going there. But if I’m lucky I will have good weather and reach the summit, and if I don’t I’m sure I will return home with many happy memories.
Read more
In 1988 a ragtag quartet of mountaineers from the USA, Canada and the UK made one of Everest’s most intrepid ascents, and last Thursday I had the good fortune of attending a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society in London celebrating the 25th anniversary of their climb.
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
There’s an old cliche in mountaineering, getting to the top is optional, but getting back down again is mandatory. There are climbers who ignore this simple axiom – and, indeed, there were some of them on Cho Oyu this year
Read more
It’s now been a few days since our puja and it feels like our ascent of Cho Oyu has truly begun. On Monday we made an initial foray up to Camp 1 at 6400m. This involves a three hour crossing
Read more