Mark Horrell's Blog, page 30
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...
May 24, 2017
The great Everest self-fulfilling prophecy
The self-fulfilling prophecy is … a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true … the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning. Robert K. Merton, The Self Fulfilling Prophecy
The other day I was copied into the following conversation on Twitter, which raised an old chestnut:
I don’t know whether these ladies were being entirely serious (they had read my book, after all), b...
May 20, 2017
Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers is now available as a paperback
Another quick book update.
I mentioned last month that I’m in the process of having selected titles from my Footsteps on the Mountain Travel Diaries re-edited and published as revised editions. These revised editions are the first time ever that the diaries have been published as paperbacks.
The paperback of Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers is available now The latest diary to go through this process is Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers, about my expedition to Gasherbrums I and II in the Pakista...
May 17, 2017
Exploring Monti della Laga after the Italian earthquake
Monti della Laga is one of the forgotten mountain ranges of Italy’s Central Apennines. It shares a national park with the more famous Gran Sasso massif (Parco Nazionale del Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga), but could hardly be more different in character.
The dry rock cathedrals of Gran Sasso are steep and dramatic, and reach their pinnacle on the summit of 2,912m Corno Grande, the highest point in the Apennines by some margin. Meanwhile the peaks of Monti della Laga, just to the north, are rol...
May 10, 2017
Move over Lonely Planet – here are the best travel guidebooks to Nepal
I’ve mentioned a couple of times how I’m a keen follower of The Longest Way Home blog, written by UK-born travel writer David Ways. Although he’s been all over the world during the decade or so he’s been writing it, Dave is semi-settled in Nepal now and spends much of the year there, reporting back on the latest tourism developments.
Back in December I reported on Dave’s latest website project Missingtrekker.com, which provides information on tourists who have gone missing while trekking in N...
