Exploring the Cordillera Blanca’s high altitude playground

August 6, 2014 Trip reports altitude junkies, andes, cordillera blanca, huaraz, huascaran, ishinca, palcaraju, pasang ongchu sherpa, peru, phil crampton, ranrapalca, tocllaraju, trekking, urus este 5 Comments

Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountain range offers a veritable playground for the mountain lover, be they a trekker, alpinist or high altitude snow plodder, with glorious scenery and a range of different climbing. Here’s what happened when I went there last month.

Is K2 the new Everest?

July 30, 2014 Opinion and advice 8000m peaks, alan arnette, albert mummery, alison hargreaves, annapurna, climbing fatalities, commercial mountaineering, everest, fritz wiessner, history of mountaineering, julie tullis, k2, karakoram, kurt diemberger, lou whittaker, nepal, pakistan, pasang dawa lama, walter bonatti 10 Comments

There were remarkable events on K2 this week, with record numbers of climbers reaching the summit. K2 is regarded as one of the hardest mountains in the world, but has it now become within the range of less experienced commercial climbers?

Peruvian icefall doctors: a case study

July 24, 2014 Opinion and advice andes, cordillera blanca, mountain safety, pasang ongchu sherpa, peru, phil crampton, tocllaraju 0 Comment

The photograph below shows Pasang Ongchu Sherpa crossing a ladder over a crevasse on Tocllaraju in Peru. A Himalayan veteran with multiple ascents of Everest and Manaslu to his name Pasang is no stranger to using ladders to get across crevasses, but even he looked a little nervous crossing this one.

A return to the Peruvian Andes, in very different circumstances

July 9, 2014 Expedition dispatches altitude junkies, altitude sickness, andes, annie smith peck, cordillera blanca, erwin schneider, first ascents, history of mountaineering, huascaran, huayhuash circuit, joe simpson, peru, siula grande, trekking 2 Comments

By the time you read this I will be in Peru, setting out in the hope of climbing its highest mountain, 6768m Huascaran. It’s been a long time coming. My one and only visit to Peru was when I walked the Huayhuash Circuit as a novice trekker in 2002.

4 ways to improve the south side of Everest

July 2, 2014 Opinion and advice 8000m peaks, alpinism, altitude junkies, climbing fatalities, commercial mountaineering, everest, everest base camp, himex, lhotse, mountaineering ethics, nepal, sherpas

I’m going to finish my series of posts on this year’s Everest season on a positive note by looking at some possible ways forward for commercial mountaineering on Everest. The aim is not just to make the mountain safer but to improve the overall experience for all who climb it.

The cod science of Everest hate

June 25, 2014 Opinion and advice climbing fatalities, commercial mountaineering, everest, media sensationalism, nepal, outside magazine, sherpas, tenzing norgay, trekking 10 Comments

One thing every Everest climber has to get used to is hate written about them in the media. Sometimes the hate becomes so pervasive that it starts to resemble propaganda, and one particularly corrosive piece of propaganda concerning Everest has been cited frequently recently and needs to be challenged.

Getting married is the peak of hubris

June 18, 2014 Humour everest, media sensationalism, mountaineering ethics, the guardian 0 Comment

With vicars treated like lapdogs by cretinous narcissists, a crisis in church matrimony was inevitable. This week on the Footsteps of the Mountain blog we welcome Tony Gould as our special guest blogger, who will be talking knowledgeably about one of his favourite topics, marriage and road traffic accidents.

Leo Houlding does his bit for the Sherpas

June 11, 2014 Reviews and tributes antarctica, chance, climbing fatalities, conrad anker, edmund hillary, everest, first ascents, george lowe, george mallory, himalayan trust, leo houlding, mountain films, mountain talks, nepal, rebecca stephens, rock climbing, sandy irvine, sherpas, ulvetanna 6 Comments

Last week one of Britain’s top rock climbers did a lecture at the RGS in London. Rock climbing isn’t generally my thing, but this talk had an Everest theme, and one of its aims was to raise money for the families of the Sherpas who died in the 18 April avalanche.

A funny name for a mountain

June 4, 2014 Humour 8000m peaks, denali, edmund hillary, everest, hillary peak, kangchenjunga, kangchung peak, kosciuszko, lhotse, nepal, nepal mountaineering association, sir george everest, tenzing norgay, tenzing peak, topographic prominence, trekking peaks 4 Comments

There have been some strange names given to mountains over the years, often for very obscure reasons. Recently the Nepal Mountaineering Association has been applying more modern names, and has just given two peaks onomatopoeic titles that resemble the sound of somebody throwing up.

The Everest Base Camp summit meeting: an eyewitness account

May 29, 2014 Reviews and tributes asian trekking, climbing fatalities, climbing permits, commercial mountaineering, everest, everest base camp, jagged globe, nepal, nepal mountaineering association, sherpas, trekking agencies association of nepal 17 Comments

In April government officials flew into Everest Base Camp to meet with Sherpas who had issued demands after a fatal avalanche. Afterwards they issued a press release about the meeting that was misleading in a number of ways. Here is my account of the events I witnessed that day.