Mark Horrell's Blog, page 17

Paperback of Feet and Wheels to Chimborazo: the perfect gift to slip inside your Christmas stocking

‘Every once in a lifetime, a book comes along that is so outrageously witty that you have to wear a corset to avoid splitting your sides with laughter. Feet and Wheels to Chimborazo is just such a book,’ said my dad – who, I should point out, does not enjoy wearing corsets.

I know what you’re thinking: he’s my father, so he would say that, wouldn’t he. This may be true, but he said this (or something like it) in spite of the joke I made at his expense towards the end of the book.

This is my proof copy of Feet and Wheels to Chi...

Monte Amaro up the backside: a bittersweet ascent in the Apennines

Welcome to this, the second in my series of Apennine ‘up the backside’ posts, so called because I tackle the mountain from the opposite of its usual side. I have previously talked about an ascent of Monte Marsicano via its rear passage. In this week’s post I tackle Monte Amaro (2,793m), the second highest peak in the Apennines.

In Italian, Monte is not a gentleman’s name but the short form of the word ‘mountain’, used in much the same way as we use ‘Mount’ in English, by appending it to the front of the name to indicate...

Nirmal Purja’s ascent of all fourteen 8,000m peaks: why is it controversial?

Every so often a story emerges in the world of mountaineering that is so big that it makes it into the popular press alongside stories about Brexit, Brexit and even Brexit. Last week was one of those weeks.

A Nepali climber and former soldier in the Gurkha regiment of the British Army called Nirmal Purja completed his quest to climb all fourteen of the world’s 8,000m peaks in the staggeringly quick time of 189 days. He called his challenge ‘Project Possible’, and it was staggering because the previous record for climbing all f...

An ascent of Imbabura, the dragon-back of Otavalo

In local Ecuadorian legend, the god Taita Imbabura is said to have fought the god Mojanda for the affections of Maria Isabel Cotacachi. Imbabura won this battle and took Cotacachi for his wife. As I reported in a previous post Imbabura was so smitten with love for Cotacachi that he erupted with joy upon first seeing her.

But this is a mountaineering blog, not a porn site. What, you may be wondering, does any of this have to do with mountains?

Imbabura rises above the city lights of Otavalo

You may recall from my post two weeks ago, Mojanda was t...

Wanda Rutkiewicz: the mountaineer’s Google Doodle

If, like me, you’ve never got round to wondering why Google never feature any mountaineers on their daily Google Doodle [*], then you would have been surprised to open your web browser last Wednesday to find a cartoon line-drawing of somebody in a pith helmet tugging on a rope.

The somebody was none other Wanda Rutkiewicz, and apparently I wasn’t the only person excited about it. My tweets on Twitter are usually accompanied by an animated gif of some tumbleweed blowing past (until Edita takes pity and gives me a retweet). B...

Fuya Fuya, the most exciting mountain in Ecuador

According to the Urban Dictionary, the word ‘Fuya’ is a portmanteau whose meaning equates to the popular phrase ‘Fuck, yeah!’

If this is true, then the volcano Fuya Fuya, a short distance north-east of Quito, was clearly going to be one of the most exciting climbs in Ecuador.

I had never heard of it before, but our expedition outfitter, Javier Herrera of Andeanface, suggested that we climb it as a warm-up on our second day in Ecuador. He gave every indication that it would be an easy walk up.

The twin summits of Fuya Fuya from the...

Quilotoa: the easiest way in Ecuador to look into a volcanic crater?

Ecuador has some impressive volcanic craters. Some, such as Cotopaxi and Tungurahua – both of which I’m going to talk about later – take a bit of effort to get to. But first, a more relaxing interlude.

Not all volcanoes in Ecuador require hard physical effort for the reward of looking down into their craters. After my collapse in Ecuador’s Llanganates mountain range (as described in last week’s post), I recovered by visiting Quilotoa, a volcanic crater that last erupted in 1280 and now contai...

How to recover from a big altitude misjudgement

Acclimatisation is a funny thing. On the face of it, it seemed like we had a good plan.

After a full day acclimatising at 2850m in Quito, we would climb a 4258m volcano followed by a 4640m volcano. Then we would trek for 5 days, during which we would climb a 4576m volcano.

All of this would put us in good shape to climb a 5016m volcano then round things off by climbing a 5897m volcano.

High-altitude struggling in the Llanganates Mountains (Photo: Edita Horrell)

We have both been at high altit...

Two volcano hikes in northern Ecuador

A quick update from the road in Ecuador.

Edita and I have finished our first two acclimatisation hikes exploring the northern part of the country.

We started with Mojanda, a sprawling massif a 2-3 drive northeast of Quito. Mojanda has multiple summits formed by the collapse of two volcanoes. Its highlight is a large lake at 3700m formed by one of the two craters.

Imbabura rises above the town of Otavalo

We climbed both summits of Fuya Fuya, a twin-peaked mountain formed by the other volcano....

A short escape to Ecuador to climb some of its more obscure peaks

Excuses, excuses… It’s a very short blog post this week. Life has been hectic in the Horrell household recently and I have been struggling to keep on top of my writing. I am currently working full time and have been travelling a lot with work. This has left less time for writing in the evenings, and less time for completing the paperback version of Feet and Wheels to Chimborazo.

On top of this, Edita and I have recently bought a cottage in the Cotswolds to retreat to at weekends. The cottage...