Mark Horrell's Blog, page 29
July 29, 2017
Unfinished business on Corno Piccolo
2,655m Corno Piccolo was the last of the major peaks in the Gran Sasso range we were yet to climb. After our wrong turn three weeks ago, which took us up the via ferrata, rather than the normal route we had been intending, I wondered when our next opportunity would come. We are moving from Italy in August, and it may be some time before we are back in the Apennines.
We had one more opportunity last weekend, however. After attending a farewell party in Rome on Saturday afternoon (back home in...
July 26, 2017
The long road to Chimborazo on legs and wheels
By the time you read this I will have embarked on the first stage of a two-month adventure that will take me from the mountains of Italy to the coast of Scotland and – if all goes to plan – the highest point on the planet in a way that’s never been done before.
Hang on a minute, I hear you saying, you’re going to be climbing Everest dressed as a rhino during the monsoon season?
That would certainly be a first, but that’s not what I’m doing, for several reasons. For a start, that would be sill...
July 19, 2017
The Corno Grande and Corno Piccolo traverse
It would have been a pity to say goodbye to the Apennines without climbing their highest mountain, Corno Grande (2,912m) in the Gran Sasso range, by one of its more interesting routes.
From every summit in central Italy, Corno Grande rises on the horizon like a cathedral towering over a mediaeval city. From every angle, and every position, it’s easily the most eye-catching peak for miles around, a striking tower of rock, rising hundreds of metres above the gentler summits that surround it.
Co...
July 12, 2017
Monte Acquaviva: the Maiella massif from both sides
Our previous visits to Maiella have focused on Monte Amaro (2,793m), its highest peak and the second highest mountain in the Apennines after Corno Grande (2,912m). But there is another peak, Monte Acquaviva (2,737m) that is almost as high and, in fact, more commonly climbed.
In its highest reaches Maiella, in the western part of the Italian region of Abruzzo, is a vast moonlike plateau, with over a dozen relatively indistinct, scree-clad summits rising over 2,500m in height.
This area is most...
July 5, 2017
The mystery of Ueli Steck’s last climb
When I first heard about the death of the Swiss mountaineer and speed climber Ueli Steck on Everest’s west peak, Nuptse, I was shocked and surprised, but there didn’t seem to be anything mysterious about it. But then an enlightening interview with the Sherpa who found his body raised many questions, and turned a simple accident into a strange mystery.
I was shocked because – as I wrote in my tribute to Ueli – I truly believed he was one of those climbers who would survive into old age. But I...
June 28, 2017
The Lithuanian conquest of the Apennines
A couple of weekends ago I had a chance to return to Monte Sirente (2348m), a mountain Edita and I attempted in winter a couple of years ago. It’s an unusual mountain in the heart of the Central Apennines with two distinct sides. The west side rolls gently over grasslands down to a high altiplano (high altitude plain) the Altopiano delle Rocche, at roughly 1300m. The east side terminates abruptly in cliffs, with one or two narrow gullies providing access to the summit ridge.
It was this latte...
June 21, 2017
An evening with Kenton Cool … Aha!
Kenton Cool is one of Britain’s best-known high-altitude mountaineers, perhaps the best known of all. He has a record number of British ascents of Everest (12), he once guided the famously fingerless Sir Ranulph Fiennes up the North Face of the Eiger, and he has made a number of notable first ascents in the Himalayas and Alaska.
Yet for some reason I’m not quite able to put my finger on, he reminds me of Alan Partridge, the cringingly hapless TV-show host played by Steve Coogan. Perhaps it’s...
June 14, 2017
Helambu, Langtang and Ganesh: the videos
It’s another of those weeks when we pause from my endless stream of flowery prose and let the pictures do the talking.
While I know some of you have read all 6,626 words of the Langtang trip report I posted in April, others of you prefer just to watch telly. Luckily for you people I also cobbled together some extremely professional video footage, using state-of-the-art sound effects to make the wind drown out the sound of my voice, vibrating tripod to make the picture sway like a boat in the...
June 7, 2017
Keeping one’s shirt on up Monte Camicia
Yes, that’s right, Monte Camicia – or Shirt Mountain. Why name a mountain after an item of gentlemen’s clothing? I’ve been unable to find out the true reason, but a clue was offered as we drove across the southern side of Campo Imperatore, the great high-altitude plateau that is bounded by many of the high peaks of Gran Sasso.
Monte Camicia lies at the eastern end of a jagged 20km ridge, the Cresta Orientale, that stretches from the waist of Corno Grande (2,912m), the highest mountain in Ital...
May 31, 2017
BREAKING NEWS: British man arrested for Photoshopping pictures of Mount Everest’s Hillary Step
KATHMANDU: News is reaching us that a 42-year-old expedition leader from Cumbria has been arrested in Nepal for allegedly doctoring images of Mount Everest’s legendary Hillary Step, and posting them on Facebook.
Tom Moosedale from Homebrewdale has had his passport confiscated and is facing a $22,000 fine. He claims that he has not committed a crime and was only describing what he saw.
The Hillary Step, a 12-metre-high cliff on Everest’s south-east ridge is considered a sacred site to the Nepa...
