author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
The International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) is considering a request from Nepal to reclassify five peaks within the country, and another in Pakistan, as 8000m peaks. But are they worthy of the name, and is there any point? Let’s have a look at the peaks in question.
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Variable snow conditions mean summits of mountains can differ from year to year. One mountain whose summit is unrecognisable from when it was first climbed in 1956 is Manaslu in Nepal. Its summit has changed so much that modern mountaineers could almost be climbing a different mountain.
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While George Mallory, Edmund Hillary, Reinhold Messner and Eric Shipton all deserve their place in the Everest pantheon, if there’s to be an award for the greatest of all Everest climbers, then IMHO it should go to Tenzing Norgay, because he had to work so much harder to achieve his ambition than any of the other climbers.
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If you’ve read a few things about Everest or other 8000m peaks then you’ve probably come across the term death zone. If you have then it’s likely you reacted in one of two ways. Either your respect for the writer grew enormously or you imagined the sound of evil laughter accompanied by a dramatic organ chord.
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If at first you don’t succeed, go and lie on a beach next time and get yourself a nice sun tan … is not a phrase you hear many mountaineers saying. In fact, once bitten by the mountaineering bug your
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The great Tyrolean mountaineer Reinhold Messner famously claimed to have seen a yeti when he was camping alone in a clearing in Tibet in 1986. Whatever it was, it moved adeptly on two legs and was too big to be
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