author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
While I was in Kathmandu last month, I learned that Chongba Sherpa passed away last year after a short battle with cancer. He climbed with me on Manaslu in 2011 and Everest in 2012, and we stood on both summits together. He climbed Everest a remarkable 14 times.
Read more
It was silly season in the media again last week, when the BBC latched onto another Everest story. But while the media were busy having their usual feeding frenzy, expedition operators didn’t help by squabbling among themselves.
Read more
While George Mallory, Edmund Hillary, Reinhold Messner and Eric Shipton all deserve their place in the Everest pantheon, if there’s to be an award for the greatest of all Everest climbers, then IMHO it should go to Tenzing Norgay, because he had to work so much harder to achieve his ambition than any of the other climbers.
Read more
I recently had to lengthen my crampons to fit a new pair of a boots. This wasn’t the straightforward procedure I was expecting it to be: because of the design of the crampon I had to take the entire thing
Read more
The story of the 2012 Altitude Junkies expedition to climb Everest by the North Ridge Sometimes you get lucky in life, and everything just seems to fall into place like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. These times are rare and
Read more
There’s nothing some journalists like more than a bit a death. It generates controversy, helps sell copy, and gives them an opportunity to drum up hatred against people who live more interesting lives than they do. And this year on
Read more
This is a short post briefly describing our successful ascent of Everest by the North Ridge on Saturday 19 May. I’ll describe it in more depth in a later post, once I’ve recovered from summit exhaustion and had more time
Read more
The waiting, the resting and the acclimatisation is over. Tomorrow we move up to Advanced Base Camp (ABC) to get ourselves in position for our summit push. Our exact schedule is not yet confirmed as there still remain a few
Read more
When I set out from Camp 4 at 7460m on Manaslu, it was the first time that I’d climbed with bottled oxygen. My 700 metre climb from Camp 3 the previous day had been unremittingly steep and tiring, but I
Read more
The story of Manaslu, autumn 2011 Sir Ranulph Fiennes eventually reached the summit of Everest on his third attempt. After suffering a heart attack during his first one in 2005, turning back with exhaustion during his second in 2008, and
Read more