author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
Forest fires have been in the news recently. Some are natural, but many people believe that climate change is causing them to occur more frequently. Earlier this year, we witnessed a Himalayan forest fire that we believe was entirely man-made.
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A Chinese cyclist has recently completed the first ever Everesting — where a cyclist repeatedly climbs the same hill until they’ve biked the height of Everest — on the side of Everest itself. It’s a story I first reported on a few months earlier.
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A quick book update. I’m in the process of publishing revised editions of the Footsteps on the Mountain Travel Diaries, and making them available as paperbacks for the first time ever. The Manaslu Adventure is now available in paperback form.
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We had ascended a long valley to climb our peak and see the north side of Kangchenjunga. Now it was time to see the south side, and the nature of the trekking was about to change as we crossed a number of passes. This is part two of my Kangchenjunga trek report.
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I was long overdue a visit to Kangchenjunga, one of the 8,000m peaks I have read most about, but seen least of. Here is the first of two trip reports about our trek to the Nepalese side last month, covering our visit to the north base camp.
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If you ever trek to Pangpema to see the north side of Kangchenjunga, then you should definitely allow an extra half day to climb Drohmo Ri, even if you’re just a trekker. It’s a piece of piss to get up, and the view is something special.
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It’s not often I’ve sat through a whole silent movie that doesn’t feature slapstick comedy and a honky-tonk piano playing in the background, but in this case I made an exception. It’s archive footage of the 1955 British Kangchenjunga expedition.
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By the time you read this I will be somewhere in the Kangchenjunga region of Nepal, in the far east of the country near its eastern border with India. It’s a region dominated by one huge mountain, 8,586m Kangchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world.
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A couple of weekends ago, I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a while: install the Himalayan Database on my computer and play around with it. The Himalayan Database is a comprehensive record of expeditions to peaks in Nepal, based on the archives of Elizabeth Hawley.
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Everesting involves repeatedly cycling up and down a hill until you’ve ascended the height of Everest. I read an interesting article about Everesting on the Tibetan side of Everest, that shed light on how poorly adapted endurance training is for altitude.
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