author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
Be a good person and you too can become a demigod Trekkers and mountaineers who spend a lot of time travelling in the Himalayas often experience the feeling of being gompered out, ie. having visited so many Buddhist monasteries (or
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I was thinking about this question last week, when a friend emailed me after returning from an expedition to Island Peak in Nepal to say he hadn’t been able to reach the summit because a section of ice climbing on
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Well, I returned from my last trip to the Himalayas in November, and I’ve just got round to getting my travel diary from my expedition to Cho Oyu online, six months later. Does anyone care? Half the team who might
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The photograph below was taken just beneath the Kang La pass in the Annapurna region of Nepal, and shows practically the entire northern sweep of the Annapurna range from Annapurna II on the left to Tilicho Peak on the right.
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While every man and his dog were busy climbing Everest last year, including a 13 year old American boy, a few short miles away a handful of international teams were battling for their lives on Makalu, the world’s 5th highest
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“Every step was dogged by a presentiment of catastrophe, as if, out of the mists above, a white wave of death would engulf us.” Is it time for a mountaineer to begin questioning his sanity when he reads a book
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Although I had given up on Human Planet, the latest blockbuster documentary series by the BBC Natural History Unit, a few weeks ago, as a mountaineer who loves mountain photography, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the episode
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The environmental cost of mountaineering expeditions Base camp on the east side of Baruntse, Nepal, is one of the most breathtaking settings you’re ever likely to come across. Hemmed in by rock walls on two sides, to the west the
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If you like books about mountaineering, here are some of my favourites. I make no claims that these are the 5 best books about mountain exploration ever written, because I can’t claim to have read them all. They are simply
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With the spring trekking season in Nepal nearly upon us, and record numbers of visitors expected in the country for the second successive season, some people are beginning to question the impact of tourist numbers on this small developing Himalayan
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