author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
I had injured my leg and didn’t know if I had time to recover for the next day of scrambling. What should I do: an easy walk to test it out, or a long day out I’d been looking forward to for a long time? Luckily, our guide Dave had a cunning plan.
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In last week’s post, I explained how we had hired a mountain guide to do Skye’s infamous Cuillin traverse, over 11 Munros with many technical sections. I had injured my knee backpacking the previous week, but I was determined to give it a try. Would I cope?
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We’d hired a mountain guide to do the Cuillin traverse, a 12km ridge on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, which takes in 11 Munros and many subsidiary peaks. But with injuries in both legs and a knee that couldn’t bend more than 90 degrees it seemed inconceivable for me.
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Our plan for the second day of our backpacking trip beyond Glen Nevis was to climb the Grey Corries on the north side of the valley. We had a long day ahead of us, and an ambitious plan to complete a full traverse of the ridge across four Munros and eight summits.
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When I hiked the Ring of Steall last year, I saw an emerald valley to the east, accessible only by foot and surrounded by Munros. I imagined wild camping in that idyllic location, and picking off the mountains one by one. Barely a year later, my dream came to fruition.
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It’s time for my very last set of videos, and those of you who like listening to the wind drowning out the sound of my voice are in for one final treat. Last Christmas and New Year, I journeyed to Colombia for a short trek in Los Nevados National Park.
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It’s time for my latest set of videos: Unexplored Ecuador. Last autumn Edita and I made our fourth trip to Ecuador, and decided to get a little off the beaten track by visiting some of the country’s lesser known volcanoes and mountain areas.
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It takes me so long to get round to editing my videos these days that I know some of you die of excitement waiting for the next one to appear. Lockdown has provided me with a window of opportunity and I’m hurtling though them like a snail. Here, finally, are the videos of my trip to Ojos del Salado a year and a half ago.
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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a great series on the Great Himalaya Trail. This inspired me to return to my old footage of the last time I was in Nepal. It’s now two years since Edita and I trekked the Kangchenjunga Base Camps circuit, and I still hadn’t completed editing my video footage from that trek. Well, now I have, and it’s been great fun going back and reliving it.
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Los Nevados National Park in Colombia’s Cordillera Central mountain range has some similarities with the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy. It rises to just over 5,000m and it surrounded by páramo. But in one key respect it’s very different – volcanoes.
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