mountain rescue

A few years ago on this blog, I posed the question Where are the humorous mountaineering books?. Towards the end of last year, I discovered a hidden gem of witty mountaineering literature quite by chance: a collection of whimsical short stories that I believe would have had P.G. Wodehouse chuckling appreciatively.

Tomek Mackiewicz’s death on Nanga Parbat carries a number of characteristics of a Shakespearean tragedy. It has a tragic hero with a tragic flaw that will ultimately lead to his downfall. It involves a tragic waste, an external conflict, and even a catharsis.

Earlier this week a fundraising appeal for Sange, a 19-year-old Sherpa who suffered severe frostbite on Everest this year, reached its ambitious target of $42,000.

When I first became aware of a crowdfunded appeal to search for two climbers who had been missing for days on a remote peak in Pakistan, my immediate impression was that it was both desperate and futile. Not everyone saw it that way, and what happened next was remarkable.

The Doctor and the Apprentice: the Jeeves and Wooster of mountaineering literature

Tomek Mackiewicz and Nanga Parbat: a Shakespearean mountaineering tragedy

The kindness of strangers is helping a young Sherpa recover from frostbite

Why a crowdfunded mountain rescue raised $200,000 in under a week