Mark Horrell's Blog, page 3

BREAKING NEWS: Climbers to scale Mount Everest in a weekend by inhaling helium

Every Friday afternoon starting in May, a policeman, two influencers, a government minister and a banker will be sitting at their desks in London with half an eye on their pagers,. If the pagers bleep, they will be ready to jump up and put their trousers on (well, the influencers and the government minister anyway).

This is not because they are worried that the pagers might be sabotaged; they are waiting for a message that could take them on the trip of a lifetime.

Meanwhile, up at Everest Base ...

Christmas in Glen Coe III: the Hillwalk Terminator

Check out this for a summit forecast:

Sunday: Heavy rain, winds 60mph, visibility very poor, temp 3°CMonday: Heavy rain, winds 15mph, visibility very poor, temp 4°CTuesday: Heavy rain, winds 40mph, visibility very poor, temp 5°CWednesday: Light rain, winds 40mph, visibility very poor, temp 5°CThursday: Light rain, winds 20mph, visibility very poor, temp 3°CFriday: Light rain, winds 30mph, visibility very poor, temp 3°CSaturday: Light snow, winds 25mph, visibility poor, temp 1°C

It was th...

The life of John Cleare, the great mountain photographer, as told in comments

I was sad to learn of the death of legendary photographer John Cleare in October this year at the age of 88. He was one of the best known and most respected climbing and mountaineering photographers of the last 50 years.

One of his first commissions was as a cameraman for the Swiss documentary film Matterhorn Centenary in 1965. He was a cameramen on Sir Chris Bonington’s famous BBC live broadcast Old Man of Hoy in 1967, and went on to film Clint Eastwood in the Eiger Sanction in 1974. My copy of...

The great balcony in the clouds: the Tour du Mont Blanc to Chamonix

This is the last of four posts describing our trek around the Tour du Mont Blanc in September, a classic 170km circuit of Western Europe’s highest mountain. After starting out from Chamonix and walking the western section through France, we crossed Italy and Switzerland, and arrived back on the French border at Col de Balme. The story continues from there.

My first night out in Chamonix for 19 years had been a shock. It was mid-September and I expected the mountaineering capital of Western Europ...

A window into the past: the Tour du Mont Blanc from Switzerland to France

This is the third of four posts describing our trek around the Tour du Mont Blanc in September, a classic 170km circuit of Western Europe’s highest mountain. After starting out from Chamonix and walking the western section through France, we crossed Italy and arrived on the Swiss border at Grand Col Ferret. The story continues from there.

In 2003 I was a young slip of a lad who had recently quit his job in search of adventure. I took some time off to go exploring the mountainous regions of the w...

Walter Bonatti’s ferret: the Tour du Mont Blanc from Italy to Switzerland

This is the second of four posts describing our trek around the Tour du Mont Blanc in September, a classic 170km circuit of Western Europe’s highest mountain. After starting out from Chamonix and walking the western section through France, described in my previous post, we arrived on the Italian border at Col de la Seigne. The story continues from there.

In 2015 Edita was living and working in Rome, a two-hour drive from Gran Sasso, a range of dramatic limestone peaks rising above the Adriatic S...

Valleys of mountain joy: the Tour du Mont Blanc from France to Italy

A few years ago I wrote a blog post called ‘What’s next’ in the hope that it would stop people asking the mountaineer’s most frequently asked question (spoiler: it’s all about the journey, not the destination).

It may have worked, because I don’t get asked that question so much any more (or perhaps they just think – with some justification – that I’m clearly past my peak). However, there’s another question I’m sometimes asked by people I haven’t seen for a while that’s equally difficult to answe...

Trekking the Tour du Mont Blanc, part 1: France to Italy

A few years ago I wrote a blog post called ‘What’s next’ in the hope that it would stop people asking the mountaineer’s most frequently asked question (spoiler: it’s all about the journey, not the destination).

It may have worked, because I don’t get asked that question so much any more (or perhaps they just think – with some justification – that I’m clearly past my peak). However, there’s another question I’m sometimes asked by people I haven’t seen for a while that’s equally difficult to answe...

Crazy cows on public footpaths: is it time to change the law?

One of the most dangerous things I have ever done as a trekker was cross a field of bullocks above the Atlantic coast near the village of Boscastle in Cornwall.

As the grandson of a farmer, I was brought up to think of cows as benevolent, peaceful animals who are always more scared of you than you are of them.

On that cold January afternoon, as the salt-sea air caressed my cheeks, I didn’t have time to reflect on whether this was true, but it probably wasn’t. As I walked briskly towards the stil...

A long-awaited history of Everest in the commercial era

Sherpa guides, porters, and high-altitude workers deserve a book in which they are heroes and not victims. Western Everest guides, meanwhile, deserve a book in which they are shown as well-intentioned but human, and not as villains.
Will Cockrell, acknowledgements for Everest, Inc.

A review of Everest, Inc. by Will Cockrell

In 1989 Walt Unsworth wrote what I have previously described as the Everest history to end all Everest histories. Starting with the British invasion of Tibet in 1904 led by...