author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
Are you keen to branch out and develop the skills to climb higher peaks? Here is a series of mountains further afield that more experienced hikers should visit if you are interested in reaching a challenging altitude.
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The South Face of Aconcagua, with its tumble of icy seracs and snow chutes, has long been attractive to extreme alpinists who need a liberal sprinkling of danger with their climbing. The first team to climb it certainly got that.
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It’s time to update you once more on current progress with the book I’m threatening to publish about my journey from simple hill walker to Everest summiteer. Here’s the latest, along with a teaser from the book to try and convince you to buy it.
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We’re all different; some of us enjoy walking all day up a steep hill and going to sleep in a tent, while others prefer lying on a beach or partying all night. Luckily the world is big enough to accommodate all of us, but there seems to be a surprisingly large number of people who climb big mountains when they’re really not enjoying themselves.
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Sometimes it’s useful to have low expectations so that when the impossible doesn’t happen, you’re not disappointed. This is especially true in Patagonia, where the weather is temperamental. I didn’t have high hopes of reaching the summit of 3706m Cerro San Lorenzo, but I was determined to give it a go.
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There’s not really a good time of year to visit Chilean Patagonia. Quite a lot of wind circulates the globe at that latitude and slams into its mountains with full force, producing severe and prolonged storms and freezing temperatures. So why will I be returning there this Christmas for the first time in ten years?
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Last week the world’s mainstream media were awash with stories about the world’s first dog to climb Mount Everest. It was a heart-warming tale about a cute little doggie who had been rescued from a garbage dump in India and went on to become a pioneering canine mountaineer. But how on earth could it be true?
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It’s time to say goodbye to another friend from South America who has lost his life in the mountains. The Argentine climber Leonardo Rasnik was found dead in the Peruvian Andes on Thursday. He was assistant guide when I climbed Aconcagua in 2010, and a more cheerful and enthusiastic human being you couldn’t wish to meet
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When the Swiss guide Matthias Zurbriggen stood on the highest point in South America in 1897, as far as anyone knew it was the highest place man had ever been, but he stood there alone. His expedition leader Edward Fitzgerald had been left behind with altitude sickness at 6000m.
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Having the right guide can mean the difference between success and failure, particularly on a mountain like Aconcagua, where many guides don’t appreciate the great expense – financial, emotional and physical – that clients are putting into the climb, and
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