author, mountaineering writer – books, blog, opinion
There’s nothing like a negative Everest story to trigger a flurry of publishing absurdity. For example, some people say Everest has now become so crowded with commercial expeditions there is no longer any room for real climbers, an argument that can be easily refuted with a single photograph.
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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.
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There has been a lot of gushing editorial written recently to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first American ascent of Everest in 1963. I could write a bit more about the expedition here, but I wouldn’t be adding anything to what’s already out there. Instead I’m going to talk about another expedition which took place on Everest’s north side three years earlier.
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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
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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.
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So you’ve done a few high altitude mountaineering expeditions and you’re ready to climb your first 8000 metre peak, but there are many options and companies offering their services at a bewildering disparity of prices. How do you tell them
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The story of the 2012 Altitude Junkies expedition to climb Everest by the North Ridge Sometimes you get lucky in life, and everything just seems to fall into place like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. These times are rare and
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There’s nothing some journalists like more than a bit a death. It generates controversy, helps sell copy, and gives them an opportunity to drum up hatred against people who live more interesting lives than they do. And this year on
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This is a short post briefly describing our successful ascent of Everest by the North Ridge on Saturday 19 May. I’ll describe it in more depth in a later post, once I’ve recovered from summit exhaustion and had more time
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Here on the north side of Everest ropes have been fixed as high as 8300m, and the remainder will likely be fixed when the winds drop on 18th and 19th. If all goes to plan then teams will begin summiting
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