Mark Horrell's Blog, page 30

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...

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...

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...

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...

What Ueli Steck meant to ordinary people like me

I genuinely believed that Ueli Steck was one of those extreme climbers who would end up living to a ripe old age – not because I thought he would be one of the lucky ones, but because he was that good.

I was shocked when I woke up on Sunday to the news that Ueli was gone. His body had been found near Camp 1 in Everest’s Western Cwm. He had apparently fallen 1000m while climbing unroped and unprotected on Nuptse.

Tributes have poured in from the climbing community. He was respected by everyone...

The fate of Langtang village two years after the Nepal earthquake

There is no doubt that one of the most jaw-dropping experiences of my recent visit to the Langtang Valley in Nepal was passing through Langtang village, the site of a devastating landslide during the 2015 earthquake. Yesterday was the second anniversary of that terrible event, so it seems like the right moment to remember what happened, describe what I saw two years on, and see what the future holds.

The Langtang region sits on Nepal’s border with Tibet, a short distance north of Kathmandu. I...

For busy executives: the world’s shortest 8,000m peak expedition

We try to steer away from controversy here on the Footsteps on the Mountain blog, but sometimes difficult subjects have to be tackled.

It’s been a while since we did our last interview. You may remember that some time ago we interviewed champion rock climber Bill Scheidt on the use of sun cream in mountaineering. That interview proved so explosive that we had to close the comments for fear it might provoke all-out war within the climbing community.

It’s partly for this reason we have avoided...

Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers has been fully revised in digital format

A quick Saturday book update.

I’m in the process of having selected titles from my Footsteps on the Mountain Travel Diaries series professionally edited by my regular editor Alex Roddie. Bit by bit I am updating the books and publishing revised editions. The new versions will have brand new covers, and will be available in both ebook and paperback format (until now they have only been available digitally).

A revised digital edition of Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers is available to download n...

From wasteland to wonderland: a trek in Langtang

Today’s post is a whopper, so fetch yourself a cup of tea (if you’re British) or a coffee (if you’re Italian). Everyone else can grab a beer (and if you don’t drink then I’m sorry).

I’ve known for a long time that Nepal is a land of contrasts – from the jungle lowlands in the south, to the terraced farmland of the cultivated middle hills, to the towering snowcaps of the Himalayas in the north.

From the madness, pollution and crowds of Kathmandu, you can climb up into the hills and witness the...

Reality Check: Will there be a huge clear up of garbage on Everest this year?

In this era of fake news, the BBC has launched a Reality Check series to analyse popular news stories that sound plausible, and assess whether or not they’re bollocks.

I thought it might be fun to run one the BBC’s own stories through a reality check to see whether or not they measure up to the mark themselves.

BBC Reality Check: Brexit seems to provide a rich source of material for them

So let’s pick a story at random such as … well, how about this one published last week about garbage on Mo...