island peak

If you follow the Everest Today (@EverestToday) account on Twitter, you may be used to seeing the occasional photo of mountains taken from the International Space Station. Mountains look very different from above, and views from the International Space Station are not always recognisable. But this one of Everest is so distinctive that I had to annotate it and share it with you.

Here’s a timely tip if you’re off trekking in Nepal this autumn and are looking for some books to read on the trail. My travel diary Islands in the Snow is now available for the first time ever in paperback form. I’m sure you will enjoy it immensely.

Gradually I’m working through my Footsteps in the Mountain Travel Diaries series, revising and expanding the text and getting them professionally edited. The latest book to undergo this treatment is Islands in the Snow, the story of my trek around the Solu-Khumbu region of Nepal in 2009.

With earthquakes, fuel strikes and vacuous announcements about Everest dominating the news agenda, an obscure but significant rule change affecting Nepal’s trekking peaks has largely gone unnoticed.

Good times are approaching again. On Sunday I leave for Nepal for my fifth 8000m peak expedition, and it’s fair to say I’m just a teeny bit excited. My objective this time is 8516m Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world and the one next to Everest, as I’ve been telling everyone who has asked.

I was thinking about this question last week, when a friend emailed me after returning from an expedition to Island Peak in Nepal to say he hadn’t been able to reach the summit because a section of ice climbing on

What does Mount Everest look like from space?

Islands in the Snow is now available as a paperback

Revised digital edition of Islands of the Snow is now available

Death of the Nepal trekking peaks?

South Peak: my attempt on Lhotse

When does trekking become mountaineering?