Is mountaineering in Nepal becoming too expensive?

February 11, 2015 Opinion and advice 8000m peaks, adventure consultants, alpine ascents, andes, climbing permits, commercial mountaineering, ecuador, himalayas, india, jagged globe, ke adventure travel, mark dickson, nepal, nepal mountaineering association, pakistan, peru, tibet, trekking, trekking peaks, world expeditions

Budget climbing on its way out, cried a headline in the Himalayan Times. Nepal has often been seen as a cheap destination for mountaineering, but this perception is changing. I look at the reasons, examine whether it’s true and make some predictions.

Creative peak bagging is the way forward

January 21, 2015 Opinion and advice 8000m peaks, africa, cholatse, edita, everest, gasherbrum, kilimanjaro, lhotse, mafinga hills, malawi, morocco, mulanje, nepal, ouanoukrim, peak bagging, peru, safari, seven summits, toubkal, trekking, zambia 5 Comments

Last year was an unusual one for me. There were few real plans, and my travels ended up evolving out of necessity and opportunity, but I kind of liked it that way and I believe a combination of loose planning and going with the flow is the way forward in travel.

The Denali concession: is it good for customer choice?

December 17, 2014 Opinion and advice alaska, alaska mountaineering school, alpine ascents, american alpine institute, commercial mountaineering, denali, mountain trip, national outdoor leadership school, rainier mountaineering, seven summits, united states 0 Comment

The Denali guiding concession is up for grabs. According to the National Park Service it’s intended to provide a variety of mountaineering services of different prices and style. But is this true? I had a look at what the existing operators are offering.

Expedition insurance: why I’m ditching BMC for another provider

December 3, 2014 Opinion and advice british mountaineering council, everest, lhotse, malawi, mountaineering insurance, mulanje, search and rescue, zambia

For several years now Christmas has been the time to renew my annual travel insurance with the British Mountaineering Council (BMC). This year I won’t be, and this post is all about why and where I’ll be shopping around.

When is a summit not a summit?

November 12, 2014 Opinion and advice 8000m peaks, cholatse, false summit claims, nepal, pasang ongchu sherpa, phil crampton, samuli mansikka, trekking peaks 7 Comments

Last week I managed to reach the summit of 6440m Cholatse in Nepal, which has a reputation for being one of the country’s most challenging technical peaks. But there’s a bit of a twist, and if you look closely you might notice something funny about my summit photo.

It’s normal to say you’re going to break someone’s legs, Sherpa admits

October 17, 2014 Opinion and advice climbing fatalities, commercial mountaineering, everest, everest base camp, himalayan ascent, national geographic, nepal, sherpas, trekking 8 Comments

National Geographic has just published a series of articles about this year’s Everest avalanche when 16 Sherpas died. Buried further down the story is one startling statement that leapt out of the page at me.

Why a highway to Everest is long overdue

August 20, 2014 Opinion and advice adventure travel, annapurna circuit, everest base camp, himalayan trust, himalayas, lukla, manaslu circuit, mountain flights, nepal, trekking

If you’re planning on visiting Everest’s Khumbu region on a prearranged itinerary these days then there’s a high probability of your plans going tits up. But things look about to change with plans to build a road all the way to Lukla, the Khumbu’s gateway village.

Looking back on Everest as the dust settles

August 13, 2014 Opinion and advice alpenglow, climbing fatalities, commercial mountaineering, everest, media sensationalism, nepal, outside magazine, seven summits, sherpas, tibet 23 Comments

Now that we’re beginning to understand what happened on Everest this year a little better, more recent articles on the subject seem to be more moderate in their approach. I thought it would be a good time to examine some of the things I’ve read more recently.

Is K2 the new Everest?

July 30, 2014 Opinion and advice 8000m peaks, alan arnette, albert mummery, alison hargreaves, annapurna, climbing fatalities, commercial mountaineering, everest, fritz wiessner, history of mountaineering, julie tullis, k2, karakoram, kurt diemberger, lou whittaker, nepal, pakistan, pasang dawa lama, walter bonatti 10 Comments

There were remarkable events on K2 this week, with record numbers of climbers reaching the summit. K2 is regarded as one of the hardest mountains in the world, but has it now become within the range of less experienced commercial climbers?

Peruvian icefall doctors: a case study

July 24, 2014 Opinion and advice andes, cordillera blanca, mountain safety, pasang ongchu sherpa, peru, phil crampton, tocllaraju 0 Comment

The photograph below shows Pasang Ongchu Sherpa crossing a ladder over a crevasse on Tocllaraju in Peru. A Himalayan veteran with multiple ascents of Everest and Manaslu to his name Pasang is no stranger to using ladders to get across crevasses, but even he looked a little nervous crossing this one.