author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
There’s no doubt about it, Nepal is opening up, with new areas being explored by trekking agencies every season as the government makes more permits available to encourage tourist income into poorer regions of the country. While the busy Everest
Read more
“I was desperately anxious to see at close quarters the great Alpine summits which look so majestic from the top of our mountains.” Horace-Benedict de Saussure Modern mountaineering is said to have begun on 8 August 1786, when Michel Paccard,
Read more
Last week I finished reading Triumph and Tribulation, the very last book that HW (Bill) Tilman ever wrote. The following year, 1977, the septuagenarian explorer’s ship left Rio de Janeiro bound for Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, never to
Read more
Rising above the Southern Patagonian Ice Field on the border of Chile and Argentina is a narrow finger of rock 3128 metres in height that for over 50 years has been a source of controversy among the climbing community. Last
Read more
Last month the Italian climber Hans Kammerlander became the first person to climb the Second Seven Summits, in other words the second highest peak on each continent. According to 7summits.com, 348 people had climbed the main Seven Summits, the highest
Read more
Here’s the print (complete with apples) of Dougal Haston climbing the Hillary Step, signed by the photographer Doug Scott, that I acquired this time last week at the the Adventure Travel Show, London Olympia. Shortly after the photograph was taken
Read more
The importance of keeping a good pace and rhythm when walking up a mountain During his expedition to Kamet in the Garhwal Himalaya, Northern India in 1931 – at the time the highest mountain that had ever been climbed –
Read more