author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
We live in an era of epic endurance challenges, where people believe there’s no point getting outdoors unless you do something bigger, longer or quicker than everyone else. But it’s possible to do a challenging walk while thoroughly enjoying yourself, and without running.
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It’s been four years since my last visit to the Lake District. A return visit was long overdue and the Easter weekend offered a good opportunity. We set our sights on the Northwest Fells, an area of peaks that I’ve only explored in impenetrable hill fog.
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I’ve recently been reading The Everest Years by Chris Bonington, during which he states that he was the 7th Brit to climb Everest. So who were the 7 and what were their stories?
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Solo trekking will be banned in Nepal’s national parks starting from next month, unless hikers carry a live chicken strapped to their backpacks. Officials say it will improve safety for millions of thrill seekers who travel to the Himalayas every year.
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On Saturday 30 September, 2006, foreign climbers at Cho Oyu Base Camp in Tibet watched a line of around 70 local people zigzag up a steep snow slope a short distance away from their tents. They were about to witness something that would become headline news across the world.
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As we drove back to the Cotswolds earlier this month, Peter Gabriel’s 1977 hit Solsbury Hill popped up on the car stereo, which prompted Edita to remark: “Is Solsbury Hill a real place? If it is then we should climb it.” So we did.
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The title of Hamish MacInnes’s book Look Behind the Ranges is taken from Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Explorer about a man who is urged to cross the mountains behind his home by an inner voice. But what would Kipling’s explorer have made of Hamish MacInnes?
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The two things I miss most since moving from London to the Cotswolds are live jazz and mountaineering lectures. Imagine my delight then, to learn that Kenton Cool would be giving a lecture about Everest a few fields away from where I live.
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For many years the idea of a week in Scotland at the end of December was far from my thoughts. There are only a few hours of daylight, a high chance of rain every day, howling winds and thick mist over the hills. But it’s still possible to enjoy yourself in these circumstances.
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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.
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