2012 – Page 7 – Mark Horrell

When I set out from Camp 4 at 7460m on Manaslu, it was the first time that I’d climbed with bottled oxygen. My 700 metre climb from Camp 3 the previous day had been unremittingly steep and tiring, but I

Mountaineering can be an expensive hobby, particularly if you end up buying the same things again and again. I’ve just bought my fourth pair of mountaineering boots in preparation for Everest next month, not because I need four pairs of

Here for your titillation is a photograph of some of the electrical equipment I’ll be taking to Everest next month. I use the word ‘titillation’ because I know there’s bound to be somebody reading this who loves gadgets, and much

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

“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,

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

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

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

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

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 –

Year: 2012

The Manaslu oxygen mystery

4 pairs of mountaineering boots

The modern traveller’s obsession with gadgets

5 off-the-beaten-path treks in Nepal

The great great grandfather of mountaineering

In praise of Bill Tilman and his great travel books

A short history of Cerro Torre, the world’s most controversial mountain

Which is harder, the Second Seven Summits or the first one?

Dougal Haston climbs the Hillary Step of Everest

The high-altitude slow plod