author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
Gradually I’m working through my Footsteps in the Mountain Travel Diaries series, revising and expanding the text and getting them professionally edited. The latest book to undergo this treatment is Islands in the Snow, the story of my trek around the Solu-Khumbu region of Nepal in 2009.
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A quick book update. I’m in the process of publishing revised editions of the Footsteps on the Mountain Travel Diaries, and making them available as paperbacks for the first time ever. The Manaslu Adventure is now available in paperback form.
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We had ascended a long valley to climb our peak and see the north side of Kangchenjunga. Now it was time to see the south side, and the nature of the trekking was about to change as we crossed a number of passes. This is part two of my Kangchenjunga trek report.
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I was long overdue a visit to Kangchenjunga, one of the 8,000m peaks I have read most about, but seen least of. Here is the first of two trip reports about our trek to the Nepalese side last month, covering our visit to the north base camp.
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While I was in Kathmandu last month, I learned that Chongba Sherpa passed away last year after a short battle with cancer. He climbed with me on Manaslu in 2011 and Everest in 2012, and we stood on both summits together. He climbed Everest a remarkable 14 times.
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A quick book update. I’m in the process of publishing revised editions of the Footsteps on the Mountain Travel Diaries. The revised digital edition of The Manaslu Adventure is available now at a bargain price from the main online bookstores.
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If you ever trek to Pangpema to see the north side of Kangchenjunga, then you should definitely allow an extra half day to climb Drohmo Ri, even if you’re just a trekker. It’s a piece of piss to get up, and the view is something special.
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It’s not often I’ve sat through a whole silent movie that doesn’t feature slapstick comedy and a honky-tonk piano playing in the background, but in this case I made an exception. It’s archive footage of the 1955 British Kangchenjunga expedition.
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By the time you read this I will be somewhere in the Kangchenjunga region of Nepal, in the far east of the country near its eastern border with India. It’s a region dominated by one huge mountain, 8,586m Kangchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world.
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A couple of weekends ago, I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a while: install the Himalayan Database on my computer and play around with it. The Himalayan Database is a comprehensive record of expeditions to peaks in Nepal, based on the archives of Elizabeth Hawley.
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