It’s over three years since I last released a series of my trademark shit videos on YouTube. Some of you are wondering if a yeti got my tongue. Eighteen months have gone by since I trekked in Ladakh, and the hilarious footage that I took has been lying untouched on my hard drive. It’s time to give it an airing.
Read moreLadakh
Wham! Bam! Langtang! Chang! Four days of trekking joy
When I woke up inside my tent on the morning after our Dzo Jongo double header, I was very much looking forward to the final few days of relaxing trekking after the strenuous grind of the two climbs. But I didn’t realise quite what a treat I was in for.
Read moreDzo Jongo West: the world’s shortest 6,000m-peak summit day?
I hadn’t been intending to do anything too technical on my first return to the mountains, but perhaps I should have expected to. Our ascent of Dzo Jongo West was my first proper mountaineering for several years. Would I remember what to do?
Read moreDzo Jongo East: a 6,000m peak so easy you can just walk up it
Our plan to climb Kang Yatze I was abandoned after looking at it from a distance and deciding it would be too epic. The popular Kang Yatze II looked about as interesting as a round of golf, so we set our sights on the two Dzo Jongo peaks at the top of the Nimaling valley.
Read moreMarkha Valley Trek: a perfect reintroduction to trekking in Ladakh
After three years without a foreign holiday, how would I respond to a multi-day remote camping trek? My axe and crampons had been gathering cobwebs. Would my climbing skills still be up to the job? I headed to Ladakh in northern India to find out.
Read moreA return to the land of mountain passes
Wow, it’s been a hectic last few weeks for me and my apologies for not posting for a while. The good news is that I’ve made it to the end of all the hecticness, and I will soon be leaving for my first real foreign holiday since December 2019 – which now seems an age away in a parallel universe (and for all I know, it probably is).
Read moreIn Ladakh two men tackle climate change by making artificial glaciers
Today I’m going to tell you a story so bizarre that when I first read about it, I thought it must be fake news. But it’s true, and it’s a tale worth telling. It shows how individuals and communities can react to climate change in a way that works in harmony with nature.
Read moreHow not to do a mountaineering presentation
Climbing has as much in common with public speaking as it does with hosting a dinner party. I’ve seen some great lectures by mountaineering legends over the years, but last week I attended a lecture that was about as slick as a mountaineer’s chin after two weeks in an ice cave.
Read moreEverest’s most extraordinary false summit claim
Last week the world’s mainstream media were awash with stories about the world’s first dog to climb Mount Everest. It was a heart-warming tale about a cute little doggie who had been rescued from a garbage dump in India and went on to become a pioneering canine mountaineer. But how on earth could it be true?
Read moreIs this the finest view in the Himalayas?
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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