author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
The Korean Kim Chang-bo is one of only a handful of climbers to have climbed all of the world’s 8,000m peaks. His ascent of Everest is one of the more unusual ones. But his extraordinary life has been overshadowed by the mystery of his death earlier this month.
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It’s been three months since I last spoke about my next book Chimborazo. It’s time I updated you, and gave you another short teaser from the book the whet your appetite.
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Last Friday I reached the summit of another metaphorical mountain. After seven months of intensive scribbling I finished the first draft of my next major book. There’s a little way to go before it’s ready for publication, but here’s a teaser to whet your appetite.
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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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It’s a little-known fact that in 1738, during a boring period of the French Geodesic Mission to Ecuador, the scientist Pierre Bouguer decided to use Ecuador’s highest mountain, Chimborazo, to prove Newton’s theory of gravity.
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It’s that time again, when I show off the latest videos I’ve cobbled together in the garden shed with a pair of scissors, a roll of sellotape, and some sticky-back plastic. These ones cover our Chimborazo Sea to Summit Challenge last autumn, when we climbed Chimborazo, starting from sea level on push bikes.
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We had cycled from sea level at Guayaquil and circled Chimborazo on foot, climbing Carihuairazo on the way. It wasn’t the most direct way, and there may not be many others who follow in our footsteps, but it had been fun. We had just one more task to do: to climb to the summit.
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We had already cycled around the south side of Chimborazo. The next stage was to complete the full circuit by trekking around the northern side to Carrel Hut on the west. Just for good measure, we planned to pop up an extra peak, 5020m Carihuairazo, on the way.
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Cycling is easier when you are carrying no weight and there are no hills. That was my thought at 10.30 on the first morning of our Chimborazo sea to summit challenge. It was a challenge that terrified me, but could I achieve or would I flop? Here is my trip report for the first part of our challenge.
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The learning curve for beginners is always much steeper. Now that I’m safely back from my first ever cycling trips, I thought it would be a good moment to share some tips.
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