ritacuba blanco

Eight years ago I hiked the Cocuy Circuit trek in Colombia. To whet your appetite for this beautiful country, here are five videos covering all five days of the trek I completed in 2011. The smiles in these videos tell it all.

Eight years ago I travelled to Colombia and completed the Cocuy Circuit, one of the most beautiful treks I’ve ever had the pleasure of walking. I will be returning to Colombia over Christmas, this time to trek and climb the volcanoes of Los Nevados.

It made me very sad to hear about the last fatality on Manaslu this year before the weather closed in and the Himalayan climbing season ended for the winter. Eleven people had already died in a huge avalanche on the

The photograph on the wall in the farmhouse at La Esperanza where we stayed the night had been taken 15 years ago, but it looked very different from the place we had walked through earlier in the day. I use

Walking Colombia’s classic trek, and an ascent of Ritacuba Blanco “I’ve always associated Colombia with drugs and gangs,” a colleague said to me after I returned to work last week following my Christmas trekking and mountaineering holiday in the country.

This post is for people who love the outdoors and find Christmas a tedious bore. I know there must be some of you out there, and those of you who love it, look away now. Over the years I’ve found

An idiot’s guide to topographic prominence Once upon a time paid employees of the British Empire went to extraordinary lengths to calculate the height of the Himalayas. It’s quite widely known that the highest point on the planet is named

The five days of Colombia’s Cocuy Circuit trek on video

A return to the mountains of Colombia, with a volcanic twist

In memory of Victor Correa of Guican

Colombia’s glaciers will soon be gone

Cocuy Circuit trek: You say cojones, I say cojines

7 mountainous places to escape to for Christmas

How to measure the height of a mountain