author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
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.
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Everesting involves repeatedly cycling up and down a hill until you’ve ascended the height of Everest. I read an interesting article about Everesting on the Tibetan side of Everest, that shed light on how poorly adapted endurance training is for altitude.
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Cho Oyu is generally considered the most achievable 8000m peak for amateurs to climb. Despite this, even the best mountaineers have had difficulties climbing it, and two of the early expeditions there experienced contrasting fortunes.
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Last week The Economist published an article about why Everest is dangerous, without mentioning avalanches, rockfall, crevasses, precipitous terrain, oxygen deprivation, altitude sickness, exhaustion, exposure, extreme temperatures, frostbite, storms or murderous jetstream winds.
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A few news sites have been reporting that five UK villages have slower broadband internet speeds than Everest. But where did these claims originate, and how plausible are they?
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Have you ever been so exhausted on a mountain that you wish you could crawl back down? I’ve been there and written a book about it. But which mountains provided the hardest physical challenge? Here are my top five.
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After two major tragedies on Everest in the last two years, which generated worldwide media interest, I have found myself reading increasingly violent reports, with explicit descriptions of injuries and upsetting photographs.
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The more I learn about Tibet, the less I understand. I’ve travelled there three times on expeditions and found it a weird and fascinating place. I was keen to read Race to Tibet, a new historical novel by indie author Sophie Schiller.
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Recently I wrote a satirical piece about a fictional washroom at Everest Base Camp as a reaction to more sensationalised media reporting about Everest. But the reports contained a grain of truth that I intend to fertilise in this post.
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I’ve recently finished reading Cho Oyu by Herbert Tichy, an account of the first ascent of Cho Oyu in 1954. The book is hard to get hold of, but it’s as good as Maurice Herzog’s Annapurna, regarded by many as one the best mountaineering books ever written.
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