author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
Is a cable car on a mountain always a bad idea? If its purpose is to shorten the journey for trekkers aiming for the summit, then it may not help much. But if it’s for day trippers heading up for a nice view before going back down again, then it could work.
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Inspired by a trip to the Atlas Mountains in 1962, Doug Scott obtained £400 of sponsorship from the Mount Everest Foundation for a trip to the Tibesti Mountains in 1964. He bought three army lorries and set off across the Sahara Desert to Chad.
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I’ve recently been reading In Ethiopia With a Mule, about a trek across — you guessed it — Ethiopia, in the company of a mule, by the famously brave travel writer Dervla Murphy. She is widely admired for her intrepid travelling style, but does this come at a price?
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Some more of my dodgy videos for you to watch. These ones cover our week in Morocco at the end of December, bagging a few 4,000m peaks in the High Atlas. The full sequence is only 16 minutes long, so they’re good for passing the time.
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It was arranged at very short notice, but our brief visit to the High Atlas over Christmas and New Year, was as enjoyable as any week’s holiday I’ve ever had, as we based ourselves in Toubkal Refuge and picked off a few 4,000m peaks.
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I’ve seen all sorts of strange things on mountain summits, including crosses, prayer flags, statues of the Virgin Mary, radio masts, Ordnance Survey trig points, and even one or two restaurants, but this has to be the strangest thing yet.
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By the time you read this, I’ll be in the High Atlas mountains in Morocco bagging a few 4,000ers. We have hired a local guide and trekking agency, and are keeping our fingers crossed for a feast of winter mountaineering and a couple of days in Marrakesh.
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I’ve talked a bit about the glaciers on Kilimanjaro, and how they are shrinking at an alarming rate, but what about the climate on the rest of the mountain? This aerial photo by the NASA Earth Observatory illustrates them as clearly as any map.
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I know I sometimes write a lot of waffle on this blog that many of you can’t be bothered to read, so this post is for you. I’ve recently finished editing the footage of our Kilimanjaro climb, which included a night on the crater. Here are three short videos to provide a flavour of the trek.
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The Himalayan explorer Bill Tilman spent fourteen years of his life as a coffee planter in Kenya. During that time he and Eric Shipton made a number of exploratory treks and climbs on Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro, and in the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda.
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