Mark Horrell's Blog, page 21
April 3, 2019
Drohmo Ri: The Movie
It’s almost the first anniversary of the day Edita and I climbed Drohmo Ri in the Kangchenjunga region of Nepal, and I thought I’d celebrate the occasion with this entertaining video.
Despite having over 4,000 subscribers to my YouTube channel (who are these people?) I’m very much a writer rather than a videographer, and I don’t taking my video editing especially seriously.
You could call me a proponent of the 1980s Blue Peter school of video editing. Give me an old washing-up liquid bottle,...
March 27, 2019
Swearing in travel writing: when is it acceptable?
[WARNING: ADULT CONTENT – THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS RUDE WORDS – NUNS AND VICARS SHOULD CLICK AWAY NOW.]
In the course of writing my first book Seven Steps from Snowdon to Everest a few years ago, I asked my 74-year-old father to beta read it and provide feedback prior to publication.
The book was aimed at a broad audience – I wanted it to be accessible to readers of all ages. Of course, this didn’t mean readers of all ages would enjoy it equally. My father made the following observation, which h...
March 20, 2019
Is Dervla Murphy most admired for her writing or her travelling style?
I’ve recently been reading In Ethiopia With a Mule, about a trek across – you guessed it – Ethiopia, in the company of a mule, by the famously brave travel writer Dervla Murphy.
Dervla undertook her journey in the 1960s, crossing 1,024 miles of Ethiopia’s mountainous interior on foot from Adwa in the far north, to Sali Dingai, a short distance north-east of Addis Ababa. For the most part she travelled alone (apart from the eponymous mule, whom she named Jock), carrying little more than food s...
March 13, 2019
Undiscovered Ecuador: Cotacachi and the Guinea Pig Lake
I passed another milestone last week, when I completed draft four of my book about our journey to reach the summit of Chimborazo in Ecuador starting from sea level, travelling only by foot or bike. The fourth draft involved another round of edits based on feedback from a team of beta readers.
I have now sent the book to my editor Alex Roddie – just recently returned from an adventure of his own to walk the Cape Wrath Trail in winter. Alex will give the book a further polish with a round of li...
March 6, 2019
What happened to Alison Hargreaves on K2?
The story of British climber Tom Ballard, who has been missing on Nanga Parbat in Pakistan for ten days now, is a particularly poignant one. Twenty-four years ago his mother Alison Hargreaves also lost her life on another mountain in Pakistan, the infamous K2.
Her story hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. The media focused on the fact that she was a mother, who selfishly pursued her dream of climbing high mountains instead of looking after her family – a criticism that rarely gets levell...
February 27, 2019
Introduction to the Apennines – Part 5: Monti della Laga
I was lucky to live and work for a year in Rome, where the highest peaks of the Apennines were accessible within a couple of hours. It was a hill walker’s paradise, with a feast of mountains of great variety, and reliable weather.
Had they been that close to London, those peaks would be crawling with walkers, but this 1,200km chain of mountains that forms the spine of Italy is undiscovered, despite being criss-crossed with hiking trails.
There isn’t much information available in English. We s...
February 20, 2019
Why I don’t give away free books to readers in exchange for reviews
Today I’m going to republish a post I originally wrote for the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), an industry body for authors who for various reasons have decided to publish our books independently.
The post concerns the practice of giving readers free books in exchange for a review on Amazon. It’s something I don’t do for reasons I describe in the post, but the practice is widespread among fellow authors and even commercial publishers, many of whom consider it perfectly legitimate.
Rev...
February 13, 2019
What the devil is a circumhorizon arc?
As we made our way from base camp for an acclimatisation hike on Ojos del Salado (6,893m) in the Puna de Atacama region of the Andes last month, we witnessed a strange phenomenon in the sky.
Above the adjacent peak of Cerro El Muerto (6,488m) a solid bank of cloud flashed all the colours of the spectrum. It was something none of us had ever seen before. We have all seen rainbows many times, but these are just narrow bands in a semi-circle. Here we had a whole band of dark grey cloud giving of...
February 6, 2019
Humboldt and Boussingault on Chimborazo: how high did they climb?
Work on my book about Chimborazo (and our cycling and climbing adventures in Ecuador) continues apace. I have now received all my feedback from beta readers and am working on the 4th draft, which involves more cuts and changes as I make edits to the flow and tone of voice.
Writing a book involves a lot of butchery. With Seven Steps from Snowdon to Everest I wrote 180,000 words initially, then ruthlessly chopped it down to 117,000 for the final version. My first draft of Chimborazo had 140,000...
January 30, 2019
Free Solo: my review of an Oscar-nominated climbing movie
I don’t often go to the movies, and last time I did the film started with a crazy man standing alone on a ledge up a sheer cliff face.
There was a feeling of déjà vu when I went to a local cinema for the first time in over a year a couple of weekends ago. Different film, similar opening as the camera panned in on the same crazy man climbing alone on a different sheer cliff face.
Free Solo: a film about a crazy man shinning up a cliff face. The phrase ‘In theatres this fall’ is unfortunate. Th...
