Mark Horrell's Blog, page 33

You don’t have to win the Boardman Tasker Prize to be a no.1 Amazon bestseller

One doesn’t like to blow one’s own trumpet too often, but I couldn’t resist this one, so please forgive the indulgence. And in any case, I have you, my readers, to thank for it, so I had to post this in order to say thank you.

I couldn’t help noticing this tweet from Vertebrate Publishing in my Twitter feed earlier this week:

Simon McCartney’s Boardman Tasker-winning book The Bond is currently no.1 in the Amazon Kindle charts! pic.twitter.com/pB6Nls0Ids

— VertebratePublishing (@VertebratePub...

My new diary The Everest Politics Show is out tomorrow!

A quick note to let you know that those of you who pre-ordered my latest travel diary from Amazon should receive it on your Kindle tomorrow (24th). If you’ve bought it elsewhere, such as Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Smashwords, then you should receive it on Monday, 28th. This is a month earlier than my original release date of 24th December, which I’m very happy about.

The Everest Politics Show is out tomorrow

I would like to thank each and every one of you for your support over the...

Nawang Gombu: Heart of a Tiger

When I watched the 46-minute documentary Nawang Gombu: Heart of a Tiger on YouTube last weekend, it had only been watched 151 times before me. This is ridiculous, given this one of a man opening a beer bottle with a chainsaw had been watched 3,234,053 times (one more than that after you clicked on the link).

I’ve mentioned Nawang Gombu previously in this blog. He was the nephew of Tenzing Norgay, and one of my 10 great Sherpa mountaineers of a previous post. Nawang Gombu: Heart of a Tiger has...

The BBC Top Gear Chimborazo fiasco

Last week I received the following email which, initially at least, caused me to roar with laughter.

Hello Mr Horrell,

My name is Richard Holder, a researcher with BBC Top Gear.

We are currently exploring ideas for the new series of our show and had wondered about the possibility of driving a car to the summit of Mount Chimborazo.

I wondered if you thought this might be possible, given your knowledge of and experience on the mountain?

We are purely at the exploratory stage so I’m reaching out...

The Ascent of Rum Doodle vs. The Ascent of Nanda Devi – how similar are they?

Two of the best mountaineering books ever written were designed to be read side by side, but I wonder if anyone ever has.

I set myself the challenge of reading alternate chapters of The Ascent of Nanda Devi by H.W. Tilman and The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W.E. Bowman, first a chapter of one, then a chapter of the other, and so on, until I’d finished both books.

Has anyone ever done it before? Probably not. I have no idea, but I knew it would be fun to give it a try.

The Ascent of Rum Doodle and...

How to verify a Manaslu summit claim

There was another big controversy on 8163m Manaslu, the eighth highest mountain in the world, this year. It was widely reported that record numbers reached the summit during a two-day weather window on 30 September and 1 October, with around 100 reaching the top on the first day, and a further 50 on the second.

But it was reported in The Himalayan Times last week that the majority of those climbers didn’t reach the main summit at all, but one of the two foresummits. So what happened and why?...

How starting a blog turned me into a mountaineering writer

Something slightly different this week. A few weeks ago I was asked to write a post about blogging by the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), a membership organisation for writers who, for one reason another, have decided to eschew the traditional publishing route and go “indie”.

Once upon a time, if you wanted to publish a book, it was necessary to persuade an agent to sell your book to a publisher, who would take it off your hands, edit it for you, and publish it on their terms. It invo...

The Everest Politics Show: available for pre-order now

It’s been aaaaages since I last published a travel diary; more than two years, in fact. But I’m pleased to announce The Everest Politics Show, the diary of my traumatic expedition to Lhotse in 2014, is now available for pre-order from Amazon, iBooks, Kobo and Barnes and Noble, and will be released in time for Christmas.

The book covers the controversial 2014 Everest season, when a tragic avalanche led to a labour dispute which threatened to close down Everest for the year. For a week our frie...

Is acclimatising at home the future of Himalayan mountaineering?

A few weeks ago, I received the following email:

I read Seven Steps from Snowdon to Everest and The Chomolungma Diaries and really loved both. It’s fantastic to have such a frank insight into the path to Everest without all the swank. I now feel like my own tentative ten year plan to get there myself may not be such a ridiculous idea after all. I’d be keen to hear your thoughts on high altitude centres and whether they are an effective tool / conditioning time saver?

It’s always nice to know...

The riddle of Snow Lake and the glacier with no outlet

When the British explorer Martin Conway stood on top of the 5128m Hispar La pass in the Pakistan Karakoram in 1892, he described the landscape before him as one of the finest mountain views he had ever seen.

He was expecting to see another valley like the one he had ascended up the Hispar Glacier. Instead they found themselves looking down on a vast basin of snow that he named the Great Snow Lake.

From the midst of the snowy lake rose a series of mountain islands white like the snow that buri...