author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
Today is the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. I expect there will be quite a few editorial pieces published today reflecting on how the mountain has changed in the intervening years. I expect most of them will lament the changes as a bad thing, but I’m going to adopt a slightly different stance in this post.
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This is a post I have been meaning to write for a while. Much has been written by westerners about Sherpas over the last hundred years, but the voice of the Sherpas themselves is rare. I can’t provide it, but I can provide my own perspective of a people who have given me many happy memories, taken me to places I could never have been without them, and put their lives at risk to help me.
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Some of you have been asking for an insightful analysis of the punch up on the Lhotse Face over the weekend. As usual people have been falling over themselves to report the story without waiting for the facts to emerge, and in the Footsteps on the Mountain team we’re not averse to joining the stampede.
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It’s not always wise or worthwhile to respond to a rant, but occasionally something you hold dear is attacked so mercilessly that you can’t help yourself. There’s been quite a lot of nonsense published about last month’s avalanche on Manaslu,
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Four months after an unusually deadly Everest season, another tragedy in the Himalayas has focused the attention of the world’s media on the sport of high altitude mountaineering. Because mainstream media only seems interested in mountaineering in the event of
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There’s nothing some journalists like more than a bit a death. It generates controversy, helps sell copy, and gives them an opportunity to drum up hatred against people who live more interesting lives than they do. And this year on
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