A last desperate bid for Everest glory … by helicopter

May 14, 2014 Humour altitude junkies, edita, everest, kathmandu, lhotse, margaret watroba, mountain flights, nepal, phil crampton, russell brice, sherpas

It’s been a terribly unhappy 2014 Everest season for many reasons, so here’s something to cheer us all up. We all thought the season on the south side of the mountain finished two weeks ago, but reports in the Himalayan Times have fuelled speculation that the Southeast Ridge may yet be climbed this year.

A media guide to Mount Everest

March 12, 2014 Humour commercial mountaineering, everest, media sensationalism, nepal, sherpas, the guardian, tibet, waste management 12 Comments

With the Everest climbing season nearly upon us there will soon be a flurry of articles in the mainstream media. With journalists under pressure to knock together something emotive at short notice by pasting from websites or phoning up random mountaineers for soundbites, I thought I would put together a media guide to help save time.

The first man ever to have got on top

December 25, 2013 Humour camping, first ascents 2 Comments

Here’s some Christmas cheer for those of you who have been enjoying a plump turkey and a really good stuffing today. I tore the following page from the comic Viz when I was much younger than I am now, and it has been sitting quietly in a picture frame on my hallway wall for many years. I feel it’s time it received wider audience.

Everest’s most extraordinary false summit claim

November 20, 2013 Humour aconcagua, alan arnette, argentina, augusto ortega, everest, everest base camp, false summit claims, ladakh, media sensationalism, nepal 14 Comments

Last week the world’s mainstream media were awash with stories about the world’s first dog to climb Mount Everest. It was a heart-warming tale about a cute little doggie who had been rescued from a garbage dump in India and went on to become a pioneering canine mountaineer. But how on earth could it be true?

5 ways to prove a summit claim

October 9, 2013 Humour baruntse, denali, edmund hillary, everest, false summit claims, first ascents, frederick cook, gasherbrum, gps, hudson stuck, jacques balmat, manaslu, mark dickson, michel paccard, mont blanc, phil crampton, route descriptions, scotland, tenzing norgay 10 Comments

If a climber reaches the top of a mountain and no one is around to see them, have they reached the summit? Lots of people make false summit claims, for all sorts of reasons, so how can you be sure? Here are some of the ways of proving a summit claim.

What’s the world’s best mountain for cheating?

August 21, 2013 Humour aconcagua, bottled oxygen, denali, douglas freshfield, elbrus, everest, kilimanjaro, machapuchare, mont blanc, mountaineering ethics, pico de orizaba, snowdon, vinson massif, wilfrid noyce 17 Comments

Climbing purists should look away now. This post is for those with a more laid back approach to getting up mountains. I thought it might be interesting to compare some of the world’s high mountains to see how far you can get up them using mechanical transport, and so I give you the Mountains for Cheating infographic.

All you need to know about the Everest fist fight

April 29, 2013 Humour everest, media sensationalism, old post, sherpas, stephen venables, the guardian, ueli steck

Some of you have been asking for an insightful analysis of the punch up on the Lhotse Face over the weekend. As usual people have been falling over themselves to report the story without waiting for the facts to emerge, and in the Footsteps on the Mountain team we’re not averse to joining the stampede.

Top rock climber accuses sunbathers of cheating

April 17, 2013 Humour bottled oxygen, interviews, mountaineering ethics, rock climbing 8 Comments

This week the Footsteps on the Mountain team caught up with champion rock climber Bill Scheidt, who has completed many first ascents on bold new routes. Bill is known for a very pure style of climbing, and over the years has become an outspoken critic of climbers who employ artificial aids to enable them to complete an ascent. But it’s not just use of pitons and supplementary oxygen that make his blood boil.

Herbert Tichy’s amazing discovery on the first ascent of Cho Oyu

March 27, 2013 Humour 8000m peaks, annapurna, cho oyu, frostbite, herbert tichy, himalayas, history of mountaineering, maurice herzog, mera peak, namche bazaar, nepal, pasang dawa lama, sherpas, tibet 9 Comments

Mountaineering history is full of stories of heroic ascents which have come at a cost: loss of fingers and toes (or worse) due to frostbite. We understand how to treat frostbite injuries much better now, but one method of treatment discovered by a little known Austrian mountaineer in the 1950s, seems to have been neglected by the medical profession, and it’s one that sounds quite appealing.

Is the mountaineer Phil Crampton Richard III’s distant relative?

February 8, 2013 Humour altitude junkies, phil crampton, tumblr post 2 Comments

With the cities of York and Leicester engaged in an unseemly tug-of-war for the bones of King Richard III, I can exclusively reveal the city of New York has entered the contest to inter the corpse of the former English monarch, who died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.