author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
I would like to pay tribute a mountaineering friend of mine who passed away last month. He is not someone you will have heard of, but I believe that it’s important to remember such people, for they are the ones most like ourselves.
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ExplorersWeb has been one of the leading sources of news about adventurous expeditions for many years now. But as they say in the pub trade, it’s now under new management. This means that some important changes are taking place. There is a new team of editors and a new design, but this is just the start.
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A quick book update. I’m in the process of publishing revised editions of the Footsteps on the Mountain Travel Diaries, and making them available as paperbacks for the first time ever. Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers is now available in paperback form.
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The word inspirational has been used a lot in tributes to Ueli Steck, who died last weekend. Ueli did things which no ordinary person could do, but there was something about him that appealed to people both inside and outside the climbing community. Here’s what he meant to me.
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A quick book update. I’m in the process of publishing revised editions of the Footsteps on the Mountain Travel Diaries. The revised digital version of Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers is available now at a bargain price from the main online bookstores.
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Have you ever been so exhausted on a mountain that you wish you could crawl back down? I’ve been there and written a book about it. But which mountains provided the hardest physical challenge? Here are my top five.
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When you’ve put so much time, money and physical commitment into a climb, it’s never easy to turn around just fifty metres from the top. Here are some stories from Aconcagua which help to shed light on when that decision should be made.
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Last year I was on my way into the Khumbu Icefall on Everest, and watched in horror as a huge avalanche took the lives of sixteen Sherpas. This year I watched from a distance as an earthquake put that event into perspective. Here is my personal account of witnessing both tragedies.
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Last year was an unusual one for me. There were few real plans, and my travels ended up evolving out of necessity and opportunity, but I kind of liked it that way and I believe a combination of loose planning and going with the flow is the way forward in travel.
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A short while ago I attended a lecture by the Swiss climber Ueli Steck, known affectionately as the Swiss Machine, and later wrote about how ridiculous his mountaineering career has been. Last week I went to see him again after he had done something even more ridiculous.
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