author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
The title of Hamish MacInnes’s book Look Behind the Ranges is taken from Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Explorer about a man who is urged to cross the mountains behind his home by an inner voice. But what would Kipling’s explorer have made of Hamish MacInnes?
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There is currently an unmissable 1 hr 45 min documentary film, The Last Mountain, available on BBC iPlayer for the next year. The film follows the last climb of elite mountaineer Tom Ballard, who died on Nanga Parbat in 2019.
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In 2019, the mountaineering film maker Renan Ozturk and climbing writer Mark Synnott led an expedition to the north side of Everest to look for the body of Sandy Irvine. They didn’t find him, but they brought back a sumptuous feast of photography.
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In today’s post I’m going to show you the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen (at least on this blog). If you’ve been following my series of posts about the Cuillin Ridge, you will know that it’s not a place to venture without a rope – or with a bike.
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While I was busy publishing last week’s blog post, physicist Dr Melanie Windridge, who climbed Everest in 2018, published this short educational video that describes five surprising facts about Everest in a way that’s fun, educational and accessible all in one.
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On 7 August, an earthquake in the Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho, caused a famous rock feature known as Baron Spire, affectionately known as Old Smoothie, to collapse. It also caused a man to shoot a video with the most entertaining commentary ever recorded.
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It’s time for my very last set of videos, and those of you who like listening to the wind drowning out the sound of my voice are in for one final treat. Last Christmas and New Year, I journeyed to Colombia for a short trek in Los Nevados National Park.
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It’s time for my latest set of videos: Unexplored Ecuador. Last autumn Edita and I made our fourth trip to Ecuador, and decided to get a little off the beaten track by visiting some of the country’s lesser known volcanoes and mountain areas.
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Now that the pubs are all closed, I’ve been spending Saturday nights searching for mountain gems on YouTube. Here’s one. In the Shadow of Annapurna offers a glimpse into an earlier age in Nepal, when things were rapidly changing but many of the old ways remained.
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It takes me so long to get round to editing my videos these days that I know some of you die of excitement waiting for the next one to appear. Lockdown has provided me with a window of opportunity and I’m hurtling though them like a snail. Here, finally, are the videos of my trip to Ojos del Salado a year and a half ago.
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