author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
I was long overdue a visit to Kangchenjunga, one of the 8,000m peaks I have read most about, but seen least of. Here is the first of two trip reports about our trek to the Nepalese side last month, covering our visit to the north base camp.
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Some more of my dodgy videos for you to watch. These ones cover our week in Morocco at the end of December, bagging a few 4,000m peaks in the High Atlas. The full sequence is only 16 minutes long, so they’re good for passing the time.
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It’s been four months since we moved back to London, and we’d not been out into the UK hills. It takes effort to get out of London for a weekend of hill walking, but the effort is always worth it, and the Brecon Beacons are not so far away.
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It’s that time again, when I show off the latest videos I’ve cobbled together in the garden shed with a pair of scissors, a roll of sellotape, and some sticky-back plastic. These ones cover our Chimborazo Sea to Summit Challenge last autumn, when we climbed Chimborazo, starting from sea level on push bikes.
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It was arranged at very short notice, but our brief visit to the High Atlas over Christmas and New Year, was as enjoyable as any week’s holiday I’ve ever had, as we based ourselves in Toubkal Refuge and picked off a few 4,000m peaks.
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We had cycled from sea level at Guayaquil and circled Chimborazo on foot, climbing Carihuairazo on the way. It wasn’t the most direct way, and there may not be many others who follow in our footsteps, but it had been fun. We had just one more task to do: to climb to the summit.
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We had already cycled around the south side of Chimborazo. The next stage was to complete the full circuit by trekking around the northern side to Carrel Hut on the west. Just for good measure, we planned to pop up an extra peak, 5020m Carihuairazo, on the way.
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Cycling is easier when you are carrying no weight and there are no hills. That was my thought at 10.30 on the first morning of our Chimborazo sea to summit challenge. It was a challenge that terrified me, but could I achieve or would I flop? Here is my trip report for the first part of our challenge.
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Once again, it’s time to give a bit more space in this blog to those of you who prefer to watch telly than read books. Here are the four short videos I made to capture the magic, the joy, the tears, the pain – and the farce – of our North Coast 500 bicycle journey.
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It was four years since my last visit to Scotland, and I ended up returning in a most unexpected way. A few months ago I’d never even heard of the North Coast 500; now I’ve only gone and cycled it. The adventure took me beyond exhaustion, but somehow I got round. Here’s how.
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