author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
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.
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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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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.
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Our beloved monarch Queen Elizabeth II has now been sitting on the throne for 70 years. To celebrate this event, and because the people of Britain had been granted an extra day of public holiday to mark it, I decided to do something special.
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I have recently completed narrating my latest book Sherpa Hospitality as a Cure for Frostbite, and it’s now available as an audiobook on a number of platforms, including Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Nook, Scribd, Libro.fm, Audiobooks.com and many more.
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The Nantlle Ridge in Snowdonia National Park, North Wales, is one of those classic mountain scrambles that has been lurking on my list for many years. Its 9km contained the right sort of terrain: narrow ridge walking interspersed with some short easy scrambles.
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Plynlimon, is a complex mountain of multiple rolling summits connected by broad ridges. It is the source of Britain’s longest river, the Severn, and its fourth longest, the River Wye. I have been meaning to climb it for many years, and over Easter I had my chance.
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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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Most of us have used Google Street View at some point, but not so many of us know about Street View’s kinder, mellower, more refined, engaging and adventurous younger brother, a website that specialises in mountain panoramas.
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Sir Hugh Munro said of Ben Hope that he didn’t know any mountain of its height which could be climbed with less exertion. Surely a quick ascent on Christmas Day would be just the thing before our Christmas turkey? Ben Hope had other ideas.
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