South Peak: my attempt on Lhotse

South Peak: my attempt on Lhotse

Good times are approaching again. On Sunday I leave for Nepal for my fifth 8000m peak expedition, and it’s fair to say I’m just a teeny bit excited. My objective this time is 8516m Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world and the one next to Everest, as I’ve been telling everyone who has asked.

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10 great Sherpa mountaineers

10 great Sherpa mountaineers

As the Everest season approaches we will be hearing a lot about the successes of western climbers in the Himalayas over the next few months, but very little about the superstars of high altitude mountaineering. It’s time this was rectified, so here are ten of the greatest tigers of the snow.

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A media guide to Mount Everest

A media guide to Mount Everest

With the Everest climbing season nearly upon us there will soon be a flurry of articles in the mainstream media. With journalists under pressure to knock together something emotive at short notice by pasting from websites or phoning up random mountaineers for soundbites, I thought I would put together a media guide to help save time.

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Don’t be fooled by disaster porn

Don’t be fooled by disaster porn

Since Jon Krakauer’s seminal disaster porn classic Into Thin Air came out in 1997 publishers have flocked to release books about mountaineering disasters, but every time I see a new book like this I can’t help wishing they had never been published. Why? For me there are two reasons.

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