author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
While wandering around the nature section of the Highland Bookshop in Fort William last month, my eyes chanced upon the title The Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley. It seemed an apt choice for reading by the fireside in a cosy cottage as the driving rain hammered on the windows.
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I’ve lost count of the expedition accounts where the hardest route to the top is the only one worth considering, or where stronger climbers are cast as heroes and weaker ones clowns. All of these accounts were written by men, so it’s always refreshing to read a woman’s perspective.
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There have been rumours in the mountaineering world for a few years now that all the records about ascents of the world’s fourteen 8,000m peaks might need to be rewritten, including whether the great Reinhold Messner was first to climb them all.
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Is a cable car on a mountain always a bad idea? If its purpose is to shorten the journey for trekkers aiming for the summit, then it may not help much. But if it’s for day trippers heading up for a nice view before going back down again, then it could work.
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Last week a commercial group from mountaineering operator Imagine Nepal made an historic ascent of 8,163m Manaslu. One of the climbers took some drone photographs that help to set the record straight about Manaslu’s myriad summits.
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There have been calls for Everest operators to cancel their expeditions and donate their oxygen to hospitals to help with the COVID-19 outbreak in Nepal. So far, there is little evidence of this happening. Here are some of the reasons why.
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We know that climbers and Sherpas have been flown out of Everest Base Camp with COVID-19, but we don’t know the extent of the outbreak. All climbers and operators need to take a hard look at 2021 and decide if the positives of their impact outweigh the negatives.
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A case is currently passing through the US legal system that may have immediate implications for Everest expedition operators, and wider implications for guided mountaineering in general. Here’s my take on it.
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How much does overcrowding, experience, age and sex affect how likely a climber is to reach the summit of Everest or die trying? A scientific paper was published last week that addressed these very questions. So what did it conclude?
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I’ve recently been reading The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues & Signs by the unusually named Tristan Gooley. It’s an excellent book that will cause you to look at nature in a different light (to paraphrase climbing writer Jim Perrin
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