Mark Horrell's Blog, page 14

Llanganates, Tungurahua and unexplored Ecuador – the videos

It’s been a fruitful lockdown for me. I’ve published the latest revised edition in my Footsteps on the Mountain Diaries series, released my first audiobook and am in the processed of recording another. I’ve also had the chance to edit video footage from my trips going back more than two years, which has been sitting on my hard drive gathering virtual dust. These have included the Kangchenjunga region of Nepal and Puna de Atacama in northern Chile.

It’s time for my latest set of videos: Unexplore...

My very first audiobook – Seven Steps from Snowdon to Everest, narrated by Philip Battley

Exciting news! You may recall that after appearing on fellow mountain writer John D Burns’s podcast in April, I announced that I had finally got to grips with the task of recording my own books as audiobooks, opening them up to those of you who prefer the spoken word to the written one.

I’m delighted to say that barely two months later, my very first audiobook Seven Steps from Snowdon to Everest, is now available in major audiobook stores Amazon and Audible, with iTunes and other stores to follo...

Why did a Chinese team climb Everest during the coronavirus pandemic?

Note: This post touches on sensitive issues. It is not intended to be divisive, but merely raise questions that need to be asked and promote discussion. Please read the commenting guidelines and think carefully before posting a comment. Any comments that I consider to be inflammatory will be quickly deleted.

Some obscure records have been claimed on Everest over the years, from the first person to sing the Nepalese national anthem to the first person to urinate on the summit, but the record anno...

Is The Last Great Mountain by Mick Conefrey the last great book about Kangchenjunga?

Last weekend a sneaky article appeared in The Times under the headline Everest pioneers smoked their way up to the summit. The article went on to describe how climbers from the golden age of Himalayan mountaineering used to smoke like chimneys.

The 1953 British Everest team took 15,000 cigarettes with them; George Finch observed how puffing on a fag helped to calm his breathing in a tent at 7,800m in 1922; Joe Brown smoked 5 cigarettes at high camp the evening before making the first ascent of K...

Can you really see Mount Everest from Kathmandu?

One of the amazing positive side effects of coronavirus lockdown that many people have been talking about is the clarity of the air. Less traffic means less pollution. I’ve fled London for the Cotswolds, and here in the countryside this phenomenon is not so obvious, but for those in cities the cleaner air has been much more obvious.

Nowhere illustrates this better than Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, a place where mask wearing has been a thing for a few years now. Every year I go back it seems there ...

What a box of mountaineering books tells me about our post-coronavirus future

You can sit down and die of hypothermia when a storm hits on the mountain or you can get on with it.
Jon Barton, Vertebrate Publishing

A couple of weeks ago, I read a blog post by a company director that caused me to go to his companys website and buy over £100 of their products. It must have been one heck of an inspiring post then?

Well, it was effective, certainly, but inspiring? The story is a little more complicated and its one that I also have an interest in.

But first, here are the ...

Learning about the Manang Valley in the early days of the Annapurna Circuit

A rain shadow world where time passes to the ever-present wind and cold, snow leopards stalk the crags and Buddhist mantras fill the air.

Now that the pubs are all closed, Saturday nights for me have become a time for sitting in front of the smart TV, exploring BBC wildlife documentaries and searching for mountain gems on YouTube.

A few weeks ago I explained how much Ive been enjoying Dave Brophys short video diaries from the Great Himalaya Trail. I still catch up with those every week as he...

Ojos del Salado and the Puña de Atacama: the videos

The adventurers website ExplorersWeb has been doing a series of blog posts about 100 adventure films to watch during lockdown.

Astonishingly, despite being up to part 4 in the series, and having covered a grand total of 400 films, they have yet to feature any of my videos. Whether this is because my trips are too adventurous for them, theyre frightened by the roar of the wind which seems to appear as soon as I start talking, because the production is of such a high quality that it wouldnt be...

Cool Conversations: experience the mountains during lockdown by social distancing Kenton Cool-style

So far Ive not been finding lockdown too bad. I dont know whether this makes me unusual.

I know Im lucky in many respects. We have a nice garden beside the river here in the Cotswolds and were able to go for a walk or a run from our door without meeting anyone. Although Im currently between contracts, I have the kind of job that its easy for me to do from home using cloud services and videoconferencing apps. Ive been doing a day or two a week from home for years, so adapting to five is no...

Revised edition of The Baruntse Adventure available from all good e-bookstores

Another quick book update. Some of you may know that I am gradually re-editing the more popular volumes in my Footsteps on the Mountain Diaries series and releasing revised editions in both ebook and paperback format.

The Footsteps on the Mountain Diaries are my expedition journals. They are edited versions of what I scribble in my tent each evening after a day in the mountains, with a bit of history thrown in. Written in a light-hearted and engaging style, they provide a great introduction...