Back in 2017 when Edita and I cycled the NC500, there wasn’t much information available and almost all of it was aimed at people with a vehicle. Imagine my delight when I was contacted by Cicerone’s marketing team asking me if I’d like them to send me a copy of their new guidebook.
Read moreReviews and tributes
The 8 best books about Everest written in the English language
You may be wondering why I’ve never written this blog post before. Now is as good a time as any. The universe of Everest literature is forever expanding and it’s not possible to reach its end. However, I’ve now travelled far enough to be confident of these eight books’ place in the celestial Everest pantheon.
Read moreIn memoriam: Dave Fowler, West Coast mountain guide
It was with great shock and sadness that I learned of the death of Dave Fowler on Aonach Eagach earlier this month. Dave guided Edita and me on the Cuillin in 2020. He was a great character, ever talkative and cheerful, and extremely careful as a guide.
Read moreEssential Skye reading: The Black Ridge by Simon Ingram
I’m only just starting to delve into the literature of the Black Cuillin, but I’ll be surprised if I come across a better book than this one. Erudite and poetic, yet marvellously accessible in places, this is simply a great book by a great writer.
Read moreA short history of Everest by Kenton Cool
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.
Read moreMy favourite book of 2022: Snow in the Kingdom by Ed Webster
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.
Read moreThe strangest tale about Kangchenjunga ever told
A book review of A Step Away from Paradise by Thomas K. Shor Hundreds of books have been written about the world’s highest mountain, Everest, and dozens about its second highest, K2. There have not been so many about the
Read moreLife and Death on Mt Everest: a rare window into Sherpa culture
A few months ago someone recommended to me a lesser known volume in the Everest canon, written by Sherry B Ortner, an American anthropologist who spent over 30 years studying Sherpa culture, including fieldwork in the Solu-Khumbu region of Nepal.
Read moreIs Peaks and Bandits the world’s funniest mountaineering book?
Thanks to Vertebrate and their Norwegian translator Bibbi Lee, the meagre pot of mountaineering mirth has become a little merrier with the unearthing of a little known gem of Norwegian literature.
Read moreA walk through the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine
In these difficult times it feels uncaring to post about frivolous things like mountain climbing. While considering this, I realised that I didn’t know much about the mountains of Ukraine. I decided to find out all I could, and remembered something on my bookshelf.
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