Mark Horrell's Blog, page 15

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...

An interview and audio excerpt from Feet and Wheels to Chimborazo

Its possible to have too much excitement, and here on the Footsteps on the Mountain blog it certainly feels like weve been pushing at the boundaries of delirium recently. Last week I teamed up with fellow mountain writer and Amazon bestseller John D Burns to bring you a gripping excerpt from my first book Seven Steps from Snowdon to Everest.

How do we top that? It seems improbable but this week weve gone a step further. Not only has John recorded an excerpt from my second book Feet and Wheels...

An audio excerpt from my book Seven Steps from Snowdon to Everest

Well folks, I have something rather special this week to help stimulate the senses while you are in coronavirus lockdown.

Fellow mountain writer John D Burns has featured an audio excerpt from Seven Steps from Snowdon to Everest on his weekly podcast, and its well worth a listen a dramatic reading of the crux section of the book where I tackle the fearsome Second Step on Everests North-East Ridge. Johns narration really brings out the drama and humour; Ive had fun listening to it and I hope...

What I’m learning from Robert Macfarlane’s reading group about Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain

As coronavirus lockdown takes hold, the nature writer and reader in English literature at Cambridge University, Robert Macfarlane, has started running a reading group on Twitter about Nan Shepherds classic nature book The Living Mountain.

The Living Mountain appeared in a previous blog post of mine, of recommended mountain writing that isnt about climbing. Ever since I first read it I have known that its a book I want to read again and learn about more deeply. As soon as I spotted Roberts...