annapurna

I’ve lost count of the expedition accounts where the hardest route to the top is the only one worth considering, or where stronger climbers are cast as heroes and weaker ones clowns. All of these accounts were written by men, so it’s always refreshing to read a woman’s perspective.

There have been rumours in the mountaineering world for a few years now that all the records about ascents of the world’s fourteen 8,000m peaks might need to be rewritten, including whether the great Reinhold Messner was first to climb them all.

Now that the pubs are all closed, I’ve been spending Saturday nights searching for mountain gems on YouTube. Here’s one. In the Shadow of Annapurna offers a glimpse into an earlier age in Nepal, when things were rapidly changing but many of the old ways remained.

Kenton Cool is one of Britain’s best-known high-altitude mountaineers. He has a record number of British ascents of Everest, and has made a number of notable first ascents in the Himalayas and Alaska. But for some reason, he reminds me of Alan Partridge

The word inspirational has been used a lot in tributes to Ueli Steck, who died last weekend. Ueli did things which no ordinary person could do, but there was something about him that appealed to people both inside and outside the climbing community. Here’s what he meant to me.

Andrew Lock was the first Australian to climb all fourteen 8000m peaks. I agree with Sir Chris Bonington: his book is honest, gritty and riveting. It’s also refreshing and humorous in places, and well worth a read if you can get your hands on a copy.

The South Face of Aconcagua, with its tumble of icy seracs and snow chutes, has long been attractive to extreme alpinists who need a liberal sprinkling of danger with their climbing. The first team to climb it certainly got that.

In 1950 a French team led by Maurice Herzog made the first ever ascent of an 8000m peak when they climbed 8091m Annapurna, during one of the first mountaineering expeditions to Nepal. It’s possible to view their ascent in one of two ways.

It’s time once again to pay tribute to a friend who has sadly lost his life in the mountains. Last week Samuli Mansikka stood on the summit of Annapurna, his tenth 8000m peak, but he did not return.

I’ve recently finished reading Cho Oyu by Herbert Tichy, an account of the first ascent of Cho Oyu in 1954. The book is hard to get hold of, but it’s as good as Maurice Herzog’s Annapurna, regarded by many as one the best mountaineering books ever written.

The most shocking first page in mountaineering literature

If Reinhold Messner wasn’t the first person to climb all the 8,000m peaks, who was?

Learning about the Manang Valley in the early days of the Annapurna Circuit

An evening with Kenton Cool … Aha!

What Ueli Steck meant to ordinary people like me

Book review: Summit 8000 by Andrew Lock

The first ascent of the South Face of Aconcagua

An early history of the 8000m peaks: the first ascent of Annapurna

Farewell Samuli Mansikka, the fearless Finn

Battle of the blockbusters: Herzog’s Annapurna vs. Tichy’s Cho Oyu