A quick message to announce something that I know some of you will have been waiting for as eagerly as when you used to wonder what colour socks your gran was knitting you for Christmas. Yes, that’s right, I’ve narrated my first audiobook!
Read moreEverest
Nine Lives by Robert Anderson: Everest from all angles
I don’t often accept books for review – not because I’m not interested, but because life is short and there are too many books I want to read. Sometimes, however, I make an exception, like when Robert Anderson offered me a copy of his latest book Nine Lives.
Read moreThe best review so far of the 2021 Everest season
Here is some essential reading, not only for those of you interested in Everest history, but as a salutary lesson in human psychology. It will also be of interest to potential Everest climbers wondering which operators to avoid when the pandemic is over.
Read moreEverest and COVID-19: Why don’t operators donate their oxygen to hospitals in Nepal?
There have been calls for Everest operators to cancel their expeditions and donate their oxygen to hospitals to help with the COVID-19 outbreak in Nepal. So far, there is little evidence of this happening. Here are some of the reasons why.
Read moreEverest and COVID-19: climbers and operators need to come clean
We know that climbers and Sherpas have been flown out of Everest Base Camp with COVID-19, but we don’t know the extent of the outbreak. All climbers and operators need to take a hard look at 2021 and decide if the positives of their impact outweigh the negatives.
Read moreThe Chomolungma Varieties: struggles of an apprentice audiobook narrator
At the end of last year, I mentioned that I would be slowing down the blog to concentrate on other writing projects. In case you’d forgotten I exist or were wondering if I’d boarded the Mars probe for an attempt
Read moreHow I evolved as a writer by writing one blog post every week for 10 years
If you did a double take when you read this headline then that’s OK: so did I. I can’t quite believe it, but today I’ve reached an important milestone. When I first started this blog in August 2010, I had no idea where it would go.
Read moreThe Ghosts Above – 36 minutes of Everest porn, free on YouTube
In 2019, the mountaineering film maker Renan Ozturk and climbing writer Mark Synnott led an expedition to the north side of Everest to look for the body of Sandy Irvine. They didn’t find him, but they brought back a sumptuous feast of photography.
Read moreWhat was Jan Morris’s secret code to say that Everest had been climbed?
In 1953, Jan Morris was the Times correspondent entrusted with sending the exclusive news that Everest had been climbed for the very first time. With rival journalists snooping around the Everest region, she decided to invent a secret code.
Read moreShould you get a refund if your Everest expedition ends early?
A case is currently passing through the US legal system that may have immediate implications for Everest expedition operators, and wider implications for guided mountaineering in general. Here’s my take on it.
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