Is it a bad thing the world is becoming more accessible?

May 29, 2013 Opinion and advice annapurna circuit, apa sherpa, climbing equipment, commercial mountaineering, edmund hillary, everest, exploration, first ascents, grant rawlinson, maurice herzog, media sensationalism, mont blanc, mountaineering ethics, phurba tashi sherpa, sherpas, snowdon, stephen venables, teahouse trekking, tenzing norgay 10 Comments

Today is the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. I expect there will be quite a few editorial pieces published today reflecting on how the mountain has changed in the intervening years. I expect most of them will lament the changes as a bad thing, but I’m going to adopt a slightly different stance in this post.

A tribute to Sherpas, the tigers of the snow

May 15, 2013 Reviews and tributes alexander kellas, angtharkay, annapurna, bill tilman, cho oyu, commercial mountaineering, eric shipton, everest, fritz wiessner, gasherbrum, george finch, george mallory, herbert tichy, himalayas, howard somervell, k2, maurice herzog, media sensationalism, mera peak, mountain literature, muztag ata, nanda devi, nanga parbat, pasang dawa lama, sherpas, simone moro, tenzing norgay, ueli steck 17 Comments

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a while. Much has been written by westerners about Sherpas over the last hundred years, but the voice of the Sherpas themselves is rare. I can’t provide it, but I can provide my own perspective of a people who have given me many happy memories, taken me to places I could never have been without them, and put their lives at risk to help me.

All you need to know about the Everest fist fight

April 29, 2013 Humour everest, media sensationalism, old post, sherpas, stephen venables, the guardian, ueli steck

Some of you have been asking for an insightful analysis of the punch up on the Lhotse Face over the weekend. As usual people have been falling over themselves to report the story without waiting for the facts to emerge, and in the Footsteps on the Mountain team we’re not averse to joining the stampede.

Following the Everesters

April 24, 2013 Opinion and advice 8000m peaks, alan arnette, altitude junkies, blogging, commercial mountaineering, digi comms, edita, everest, explorersweb, grant rawlinson, margaret watroba, phil crampton, sherpas, the chomolungma diaries 15 Comments

This time last year I was lying in a tent on the north side of Everest, listening to a deafening wind pound against the nylon beside my head. Every spring a few hundred people seek to share my experience by trying to climb Everest, and thanks to the miracle of modern communications, it’s possible to watch from the sidelines.

Why Tenzing is the greatest Everest climber

April 10, 2013 Opinion and advice apa sherpa, chongba sherpa, earl denman, edmund hillary, eric shipton, everest, first ascents, george mallory, himalayas, history of mountaineering, nepal, reinhold messner, sherpas, tenzing norgay 9 Comments

While George Mallory, Edmund Hillary, Reinhold Messner and Eric Shipton all deserve their place in the Everest pantheon, if there’s to be an award for the greatest of all Everest climbers, then IMHO it should go to Tenzing Norgay, because he had to work so much harder to achieve his ambition than any of the other climbers.

Herbert Tichy’s amazing discovery on the first ascent of Cho Oyu

March 27, 2013 Humour 8000m peaks, annapurna, cho oyu, frostbite, herbert tichy, himalayas, history of mountaineering, maurice herzog, mera peak, namche bazaar, nepal, pasang dawa lama, sherpas, tibet 9 Comments

Mountaineering history is full of stories of heroic ascents which have come at a cost: loss of fingers and toes (or worse) due to frostbite. We understand how to treat frostbite injuries much better now, but one method of treatment discovered by a little known Austrian mountaineer in the 1950s, seems to have been neglected by the medical profession, and it’s one that sounds quite appealing.

Is it OK for mountaineers to miss a puja?

February 6, 2013 Opinion and advice buddhism, everest, gasherbrum, himalayas, karakoram, mountaineering ethics, pakistan, puja, sherpas, tibet 6 Comments

An obscure subject for a blog post if ever there was one, but one of the perks of writing a mountaineering blog is every so often I get asked some very obscure and intriguing questions by email out of the

BBC proves not all Everest documentaries have to be crap

February 1, 2013 Reviews and tributes everest, jochen hemmleb, mountain films, nepal, sherpas, tibet 0 Comment

Congratulations to the BBC for their fantastic documentary Climbing Everest with a Mountain on My Back, shown on BBC4 last night, which provided insight into the lives of the Sherpas who help western mountaineers climb Everest every year.

The people who give Everest a bad name

September 19, 2012 Opinion and advice 8000m peaks, commercial mountaineering, everest, himalayas, michael kodas, mountaineering ethics, nils antezana, outside magazine, sherpas 5 Comments

As Martin Luther King once said, “I have a dream”. Mine perhaps isn’t quite as worthy as his, but in its own way it’s just as heartfelt. I dream that one day everyone who climbs Everest will enjoy it, not just for the climb itself, but the whole experience of being in the mountains.

Why did Harry’s Mountain Heroes leave Everest early?

August 29, 2012 Opinion and advice climbing fatalities, commercial mountaineering, everest, himex, manaslu, marco siffredi, mountain films, prince harry, russell brice, sherpas, walking with the wounded 0 Comment

On the eve of the Paralympics there was a timely film on UK television this week about a group of remarkable disabled mountaineers on an expedition to the Himalayas, which also provided some insight into one of the most talked