author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
Yesterday afternoon Everest wore the biggest plume of cloud I’ve ever seen, extending the entire length of the Northeast Ridge and beyond. I don’t know what the mountain gods were doing up there, but it was obvious they didn’t want
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Distinctive and colourful, you’ll find them swinging from any high point or windy place across the Himalayas, but why? Tibetan Buddhist in origin, the 5 colours represent nature’s elements: earth (green), fire (red), water (blue), sky (white) and space (yellow).
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An apology in advance: it’s going to be a philosophical post today instead of the usual waffle. It’s been another clear day at base camp, apart from the distinctive plume of cloud blasting off the summit. I wandered up a
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While climbers on the south side of Everest have a nine day trek up the Khumbu to Base Camp, on the north side it’s possible to drive in by bus. The sensible route involves a tarmac road most of the
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There are two routes to the north side of Everest from Kathmandu. The more interesting one, and the one I took on my two previous visits to Tibet when I climbed to the North Col of Everest and made an
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I can’t quite believe it, but on Saturday I’ll be leaving for my fourth 8000 metre peak expedition in as many years, and this time it’s the big one. Two months of impossible jetstream winds meant my attempts on Gasherbrums
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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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I’m going to conclude my trio of posts about Bhutan by relating an incident that happened at a place called Jangothang on the Jhomolhari trek. In previous posts I’ve been moaning about the weather in Bhutan, and how the beautiful
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Be a good person and you too can become a demigod Trekkers and mountaineers who spend a lot of time travelling in the Himalayas often experience the feeling of being gompered out, ie. having visited so many Buddhist monasteries (or
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Well, I returned from my last trip to the Himalayas in November, and I’ve just got round to getting my travel diary from my expedition to Cho Oyu online, six months later. Does anyone care? Half the team who might
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