author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
It’s a small world indeed. Two days ago I was sitting on the tarmac at London’s Heathrow Airport, wondering if my flight was ever going to take off. The plane had already taxied down the runway in a howling blizzard
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Five years ago when I turned back on Aconcagua, the highest mountain in South America, 500 metres from the summit, I told myself I would never go back. It’s a boring mountain, the guides are too cautious, there are plenty
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The news that fresh doubts are being cast on the Korean Oh Eun-Sun’s claim to have summitted Kangchenjunga has raised again the spectre of false summit claims among the high altitude mountaineering community. Miss Oh had been engaged in a
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The story of Cho Oyu, autumn 2010 While we live in a society which offers us a huge amount of choice over what we do, for the bigger events the wheel of life more often than not turns in a
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Mountaineering can be a frustrating business and exceptional weather conditions across the Karakoram and Himalayas has made this year one of the most frustrating in recent times for high altitude climbers, with a hugely reduced number of summits on all
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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
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It was all looking so good. We saw off half of our team after breakfast yesterday morning on their way up to Camp 1 on their summit push. The rest of us, who would be aiming for the summit from
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We’re now enjoying our third day of rest at Base Camp. The good news is the heavy snow which has blighted pretty much every afternoon since we’ve been here has now cleared, and we’re looking at a long summit window.
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Back at base camp again after three days on the mountain, including a night at Camp 2 (7100m), the highest I’ve ever slept. We started out for Camp 1 on Monday morning (20th). As usual the weather started clear, but
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At 10.30 yesterday morning there was an avalanche above Camp 3 on Cho Oyu. Seven climbers from the China Tibet Mountaineering Association who were fixing ropes, fell 10 metres over the Yellow Band, a band of rock high on Cho
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