Mark Horrell's Blog, page 12

The Ghosts Above – 36 minutes of Everest porn, free on YouTube

In 2019, the mountaineering film maker Renan Ozturk and climbing writer Mark Synnott led an expedition to the north side of Everest, sponsored by National Geographic. Their aim was to find the body of Sandy Irvine, who went missing on the North-East Ridge in 1924. They hoped to retrieve his camera and solve the 96-year mystery of whether Irvine and George Mallory were the first to reach the summit.

It’s not much of a spoiler to say as far as this aim was concerned, the expedition was something o...

Doug Scott’s expedition to the Tibesti Mountains in Chad

In 2016 when I was working in Rome, Edita was posted to Chad in central Africa by the UN World Food Programme, to run a project distributing mosquito nets the length and breadth of the country.

She worked on a similar project in Zambia in 2014. When the project ended, I flew out to join her, and we did a short trip to identify then climb the highest mountain in Zambia, Mafinga Central (2,339m). It was an easy walk up, but we had fun finding it, and while we were out there we decided to climb Mul...

How not to do the Cuillin Ridge, by cyclist Danny MacAskill

I hope youre sitting comfortably, because in todays post Im going to show you the most terrifying thing you have ever seen (at least on this blog) more frightening than a Reinhold Messner Barbie doll, or Bill Bailey dancing in a sequinned leotard. Youre about to see something more dangerous than a Van Morrison-Eric Clapton protest concert or a supreme court nomination ceremony in the White House garden.

When I first visited the Isle of Skye in 2005, my hiking companion Tony was intrigued to...

What was Jan Morris’s secret code to say that Everest had been climbed?

Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop awaiting improvement

All well!Jan Morris, Coronation Everest

There have been many tributes to the journalist and travel writer Jan Morris, who died last month at the age of 94. She is famous for writing Pax Britannica, a trilogy about the British Empire, and for the travel books Venice and Trieste. She is perhaps most famous for being transsexual back in the days when it really wasn’t very common, an experience she wrote about in he...

Sgurr nan Gillean and Am Basteir: the Black Cuillin’s hair-raising finale

This is part 4 of a quartet of posts describing a scrambling adventure in the Cuillin Hills on Scotland’s Isle of Skye. After an eventful build up, a bittersweet first day and a scary second one, this post provides the final sphincter-clenching instalment.

‘Wow, that’s amazing,’ Edita said as we sat in the hotel restaurant later that evening.

No, she wasn’t tucking into a plate of prize-winning haggis (although that might have elicited the same response). She was looking at the Met Office mounta...

The best place on the internet to buy new paperback books

If, like me, you’re trying to wean yourself off Amazon, then in this week’s post I’d like to tell you about a brand new website that many people (including me) are hoping will be a game-changer.

Bookshop.org, a socially conscious alternative to Amazon, launched in the US earlier this year, with the aim of supporting local independent booksellers. It provides customers with the ability to search for a book online and choose a local bookstore to benefit from the sale. Bookshop.org handles the fulf...

Sgurr na Banachdich to Sgurr a Ghreadaidh: touching cloth in the Black Cuillin

This is part 3 of a quartet of posts describing a scrambling adventure in the Cuillin Hills on Scotland’s Isle of Skye. After an eventful build up and a bittersweet first day, this post continues with the next hair-raising instalment.

At the end of my last post, I mentioned how an enjoyable day of scrambling on the southern peaks of the Cuillin ridge was marred when I buggered my leg for a second time returning along the easy section to the car park at Glen Brittle. It was an injury that needed ...

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...