author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
A few months ago someone recommended to me a lesser known volume in the Everest canon, written by Sherry B Ortner, an American anthropologist who spent over 30 years studying Sherpa culture, including fieldwork in the Solu-Khumbu region of Nepal.
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Most of us have used Google Street View at some point, but not so many of us know about Street View’s kinder, mellower, more refined, engaging and adventurous younger brother, a website that specialises in mountain panoramas.
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It’s ages since I last published a book, and I’m very excited about my latest one. Sherpa Hospitality as a cure for frostbite takes us from the early years of Himalayan mountaineering to the present day when Sherpas have become superstar climbers in their own right.
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It’s been a while since I wrote at length about Frank Smythe, the legendary British mountain explorer who was something of a celebrity in the 1930s when he became one of the first people to make a career of climbing,
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It’s not clear why Kangchenjunga should be considered the last great mountain, but whatever: this book is a comprehensive history of all expeditions up to its first ascent in 1955. I learned a lot from it, and I can thoroughly recommend it, however well acquainted you are with Kangchenjunga’s history.
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One of the side effects of coronavirus lockdown that many people have been talking about is the clarity of the air. Less traffic means less pollution. Nowhere illustrates this better than Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Last week the Nepali Times posted a photo that purported to show a view of Everest from the city. Could it be true?
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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.
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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a great series on the Great Himalaya Trail. This inspired me to return to my old footage of the last time I was in Nepal. It’s now two years since Edita and I trekked the Kangchenjunga Base Camps circuit, and I still hadn’t completed editing my video footage from that trek. Well, now I have, and it’s been great fun going back and reliving it.
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Edita was in Africa last week, so last weekend I had a day to myself. What better way to spend it than pulling up YouTube on the TV and spending the evening watching porn… Mountain porn, that is — and I found an absolute gem.
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Yes, I know that a number of pedants will read the title of this blog post and mutter under their breaths with a shrug of indignation: ‘What was the highest mountain in the world before Everest was discovered? Why, Everest
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