The mother of all avalanches: an eyewitness account

May 16, 2014 Reviews and tributes climbing fatalities, everest, everest base camp, george mallory, history of mountaineering, howard somervell, nepal, sherpas 8 Comments

At approximately 6.45am on Friday 18 April, 2014 I was walking with team mates through Everest Base Camp on the way to my first foray into the Khumbu Icefall. It was a climb I wasn’t to start, for at that moment a huge chunk of ice fell off Everest’s West Shoulder, triggering an avalanche which swept across the entire width of the Icefall.

Don’t be fooled by disaster porn

March 5, 2014 Opinion and advice commercial mountaineering, everest, history of mountaineering, jon krakauer, k2, lincoln hall, media sensationalism, mountain literature, mountaineering disasters, the chomolungma diaries

Since Jon Krakauer’s seminal disaster porn classic Into Thin Air came out in 1997 publishers have flocked to release books about mountaineering disasters, but every time I see a new book like this I can’t help wishing they had never been published. Why? For me there are two reasons.

Everest’s magic miracle highway

January 8, 2014 History aconcagua, everest, expedition logistics, glaciers, history of mountaineering, john noel, maurice wilson, reinhold messner, tibet 8 Comments

When the 1922 expedition team set out, they already knew their approach to Everest lay up a side valley known as the East Rongbuk, but they knew little of the terrain they would find there. When they arrived they discovered a tumbling mass of jagged ice towers the size of buildings, but there was also a miraculous way through.

Frank Smythe is more interesting than George Mallory

December 4, 2013 History chris bonington, darjeeling, eric shipton, everest, frank smythe, garhwal, george mallory, gunther dyhrenfurth, himalayas, history of mountaineering, kamet, kangchenjunga, malaria, mountain literature, sandy irvine, tenzing norgay 14 Comments

The headline ‘Mallory’s body discovered on Everest in 1936’ appeared widely on social media sites last week. Had new revelations emerged about whether Mallory reached the summit of Everest? No, the real subject of the story wasn’t George Mallory at all, but arguably a much more interesting character.

George Mallory was murdered … by Jeffrey Archer

November 13, 2013 Reviews and tributes book reviews, everest, george finch, george mallory, historical fiction, history of mountaineering, mountain literature, sandy irvine, tibet

In 1924 the mountaineering legend George Mallory vanished into mist on Everest’s Northeast Ridge, never to be seen again. In 2009 and the bestselling novelist Jeffery Archer wrote a novel about it called Paths of Glory, but was it historically accurate? Let’s have a look.

The Epic of Everest – Captain John Noel’s film of the 1924 expedition

October 30, 2013 Reviews and tributes edward norton, everest, george mallory, history of mountaineering, john noel, mountain films, mountain photography, sandy irvine, sherpas, tibet 2 Comments

If I had one word to describe The Epic of Everest, John Noel’s historic record of the 1924 expedition, which has recently been restored, then it would be atmospheric. If I had a second one then it would be weird, but then I’m not that familiar with 1920s silent movies and I expect they were all like this back then.

Book review: Everest The First Ascent by Harriet Tuckey

October 2, 2013 Reviews and tributes acclimatisation, book reviews, bottled oxygen, edmund hillary, eric shipton, everest, griffith pugh, history of mountaineering, john hunt, makalu, medicine, mountain literature, nepal, olympics 8 Comments

There has been a flurry of books about Everest published this year to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the first ascent. This one stands out because it challenges many widely held beliefs and provides a very different perspective of the 1953 expedition than most other accounts.

4 ways to climb Denali

July 31, 2013 Opinion and advice alaska, bradford washburn, denali, first ascents, history of mountaineering, hudson stuck, mountain flights, ricardo cassin, route descriptions, seven summits, united states 6 Comments

One advantage of failing to climb a mountain like Denali is that you have an excuse to go back there. Mountains have many facets, and by choosing an alternative route you can feel like you’re climbing a different mountain. There are some great options on Denali, depending on your talent and fortitude. Here are four of them.

When the mountain is trying to tell you something

July 9, 2013 Opinion and advice aconcagua, alaska, american alpine institute, belmore browne, commercial mountaineering, denali, first ascents, history of mountaineering, hudson stuck, seven summits, united states, weather 16 Comments

When Belmore Browne and Herschel Parker had to turn around just 50m short of the summit of Denali during a storm in 1912, it would have been hard for them to imagine there could be any consolation in such bad luck. But sometimes the mountain is trying to tell you something, and when that happens it’s always worth listening.

The High One: my attempt on Denali

June 19, 2013 Expedition dispatches alaska, bradford washburn, denali, false summit claims, first ascents, frederick cook, history of mountaineering, hudson stuck, seven summits, training, united states, weather 10 Comments

If everything goes to plan then by the time you read this I’ll be freezing my nuts off on a glacier in Alaska. In January my friend Dan and I decided we would book to climb Denali, the highest mountain in North America, also known as Mount McKinley.