Mark Horrell's Blog, page 12

Should you get a refund if your Everest expedition ends early?

A case is currently passing through the US legal system that may have immediate implications for Everest expedition operators, and wider implications for guided mountaineering in general.

The case concerns a US businessman, Zachary Bookman, who has decided to sue US mountaineering operator Madison Mountaineering because their Everest expedition never got above base camp.

Bookman is one of two private clients who paid $69,500 USD to join Madison Mountaineering’s autumn 2019 Everest expedition, on...

Sgurr Alasdair to Sgurr Mhic Choinnich: the secret of Collie’s Ledge

This is part 2 of a trio of posts describing a scrambling adventure in the Cuillin Hills on Scotland’s Isle of Skye. The first post described the eventful build up to our trip. This post describes the first day of our scramble and subsequent events.

But now we see our pedigree

Made plain as in a glass,

And when we grin we betray our kin

To the sires of the British Ass.

Alexander Nicolson, The British Ass

The following day we arrived at the southern end of Glen Brittle, where a campsite nestles b...

The Cuillin Traverse – to do or not to do?

I ended my previous post about last month’s visit to Scotland on a bit of a cliffhanger.

Well, OK. Maybe not a cliffhanger; more of a hill-slider.

While descending the slope to Kinlochleven with a heavy pack on my shoulders, my left knee bent backwards, causing it to lock. I was able to descend the rest of the way on my own, but my pace would have embarrassed a creeping vine.

This was a problem, because we had big plans for the following week.

A full traverse of the Cuillin ridge involves an ove...

How does climbing Everest compare with winning a Nobel prize?

Apart from the occasional pub quiz, I’ve not won many things in my life. I did once win a tent in an outdoor website’s prize draw, which was a nice surprise. And in my twenties, I won a bottle of wine at a comedy club in London for making up a joke in the interval which everybody liked.

But when it comes to winning a prize for being good at something, that’s always been another matter. I don’t write the sort of books that will ever be considered for an award. I was pretty average at sport, and n...

Ascent Into Hell by Fergus White: An authentic account of climbing Everest

Way back when I published my journal The Chomolungma Diaries in 2012, there were very few books (if any) about climbing Everest that had been written from the perspective of a commercial client.

Yes, there was Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, about the disastrous Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness expeditions of 1996, probably the best-selling mountaineering book ever written. But those weren’t really the words of a commercial client. Krakauer was a commercial client in the literal sense, b...

Beyond the Nevis watershed, part 2: the Grey Corries

This is part 2 of a brace of posts describing a wild camp and hill walking east of Glen Nevis in the Scottish Highlands. The first post described an ascent of the Mamores on the south side of the valley. This post describes an ascent of the Grey Corries on the north side.

The second day started with the excitement of fording the river. Both the maps.me app and a couple of guidebooks indicated a crossing point at Luibeilt, but it wasn’t obvious. It was easy to get halfway across by means of a lar...

Beyond the Nevis watershed, part 1: the eastern Mamores

With an unfamiliar virus floating across the world and random quarantine rules introduced at a moment’s notice, the only sensible option for a holiday this year was to remain in the UK. Fortunately, there is always Scotland, a place sufficiently large to provide a feast of new mountains to last a lifetime.

When Edita and I stood on the summit of An Gearanach while completing the Ring of Steall last year, a plan formulated in my mind. To the east was an emerald valley – the top end of Glen Nevis ...

The world’s most stupid navigational error

After a promising start to the day, the clouds moved in and the rain started pounding against them as they ascended the south ridge of Stob Choire Claurigh, the highest point in the Grey Corries, a ridge of quartz-laden peaks due east of Ben Nevis. Four of the peaks are Munros, a defined list of Scottish mountains over 3,000ft in height.

‘That was a beast of a mountain,’ the idiot said to Edita as they crested the final rise and spied the pile of rubble that marked the summit.

They were standing...

5 surprising, educational facts about Everest, all for a good cause

This week’s post follows on neatly from last week’s, on what the data reveals about Everest summit success.

While I was busy posting that one, physicist Dr Melanie Windridge, who climbed Everest in 2018 was busy posting the following short educational video that describes five surprising facts about Everest in a way that manages to be fun, educational and accessible all in one.

I say ‘surprising’, but this depends on who you are. Some of the things revealed in the video (like the fact that it ca...

10 facts about Everest success and death rates, based on scientific data

Today’s post is all about an exciting new scientific research paper. No, no no… don’t click the back button just yet – I promise you this one’s really interesting.

Once a year (except this year, obviously), there is an Everest feeding frenzy as traditional and social media sink their teeth into the latest Everest season, producing an avalanche of opinion about how overcrowded and easy Everest is to climb these days.

Every year, photos of queues and soundbites from climbers, both on the mountain ...