Mark Horrell's Blog, page 27

Is this the world’s strangest summit cairn?

Take a look at the photo below, and tell me if you can see anything funny about it.

Don’t worry. It’s not a scene from War of the Worlds, and that’s not a Martian fighting machine behind Edita’s head, sneaking over the rock and preparing to zap her with a heat ray.

This is the summit of 3,880m Tibherine East in the High Atlas Mountains, a peak just a short distance below the north ridge of Jebel Toubkal, the highest mountain in Morocco.

That thing behind Edita is actually an old aircraft engi...

A return to the Moroccan High Atlas

By the time you read this, I’ll be in the High Atlas mountains in Morocco (hopefully) bagging a few 4,000ers.

I was there three years ago, almost by accident. I left it too late to organise my Christmas/New Year trip that year, so I ended up joining two back-to-back group trips, the first to make winter ascents of Toubkal and Ouanoukrim, and the second a short desert trek in southern Morocco.

Approaching Toubkal Refuge in the Moroccan High Atlas

I hadn’t been too impressed by my two summer tr...

Sea to summit on Chimborazo, part 3: the climb

This is part 3 in a series of posts about our Chimborazo sea to summit adventure. See here for part 1 and part 2.

We had cycled from sea level at Guayaquil and circled Chimborazo on foot, climbing Carihuairazo on the way. It wasn’t the most direct way, and there may not be many others who follow in our footsteps, but it had been fun. We had just one more task to do: to climb to the summit.

But first we had a rest day, only our second of the trip. I had improved a lot since my collapse by the...

An evening with Mick and Vic, British climbing’s answer to Vic and Bob

One of the great things about being back in London again is that I get to attend some of the many mountaineering lectures at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). This commendable social mobility scheme enables ordinary folk like me, who are neither wealthy, aristocratic nor very good climbers to spend an evening among the world’s climbing elite in an atmosphere that resembles an Eton Old Boys reunion.

Few lectures have exemplified this better than one a couple of weeks ago by Mick Fowler and...

Sea to summit on Chimborazo, part 2: Carihuairazo and the circumnavigation

This is part 2 in a series of trip reports about our Chimborazo sea to summit adventure. For part 1 see here.

Note: If you’re expecting this to be a deeply personal post about an operation to a tender part of my anatomy then please read the title more carefully.*

(*) Circumnavigation, not circumcision.

When I left you a couple of weeks ago, we had just finished the bike ride, from Guayaquil on the coast to Urbina on the western side of 6310m Chimborazo, Ecuador’s highest mountain. I still had...

Adventure-loving Guardian readers hit back at couch-potato Guardian writers

The Guardian has a past history of publishing smug opinion pieces taking a swipe at adventurous people for experiencing the occasional piece of misfortune in the course of their interesting lives.

For example, after the 2014 Everest tragedy, when 16 Sherpas lost their lives in a catastrophic avalanche, the Guardian reacted by publishing an article by a journalist called Tanya Gold who, as far as I could tell, had never been near a mountain in her life, but had read Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Ai...

Sea to summit on Chimborazo, part 1: the bike ride

Cycling is so much easier when you are carrying no weight and there are no hills.

That was the thought going through my mind at 10.30 on the first morning of our Chimborazo sea to summit challenge. It was a challenge that terrified me, particularly after my total exhaustion on the North Coast 500 a month earlier. If I was that tired pedalling around the coast of Scotland, how on earth was I going to cope cycling up to 4,000m in the Andes?

Preparing to depart from Quito with our bikes and bags...

North Coast 500 bike ride: the videos

Once again, it’s time to give a bit more space in this blog to those of you who prefer to watch telly than read books.

In true travel bloggers’ tradition I carried a video camera on my recent cycle ride of the North Coast 500, around the north-west coast of Scotland, to showcase my award-winning film-making skills when I got back. That’s the theory, and if they ever have an award for best film that looks like it’s been shot by a drunk at a party, then I will surely enter.

Here are four short...

Sore bums and saddlebags: cycling the North Coast 500

Another monster blog post, so make yourselves a nice cup of tea and strap yourselves in.

It was four years since my last visit to Scotland, and I ended up returning in a most unexpected way. A few months ago I’d never even heard of the North Coast 500; now I’ve only gone and cycled it.

I made a point of going to Scotland every year to bag a few Munros, but recently Italy’s Apennines have replaced the Scottish Highlands as my favoured peak-bagging destination.

Apart from a bumble along the Cam...

The best guidebook to Nepal is now available as a paperback

I have no doubt whatsoever my guidebooks to Nepal are the best in the world today. David Ways

This is a bold statement for a writer to make. Although I’m not quite so unequivocal, overall I’m inclined to agree, and he has every right to be proud of his achievement.

Back in May I reviewed a new guidebook to Nepal, written by David Ways, the man behind The Longest Way Home website. Dave has been travelling around the world for the last 12 years, but recently he’s been spending more of his time...