Mark Horrell's Blog, page 36

Are western operators right to complain about cheap Nepali operators on Everest?

Last week the Himalayan Times reported how the rise of cheap Nepali operators who employ inexperienced Sherpas are increasing their market share of commercial Everest expeditions and making the mountain more dangerous.

This is not a new story, but it has passed unnoticed on the radar of western media, who prefer to focus on western operators and inexperienced western climbers, rather than Nepali operators and inexperienced Sherpas.

It was good to see the issue raised in the Himalayan Times, a...

When climbing documentaries were as popular as cookery shows

The most popular programme on British TV last year was the Great British Bake Off, a televised baking competition. I’ve never seen it, as I’m pretty sure watching people bake cakes would bore me to death, but I’m in a minority. A quarter of the UK population – 15.1 million people – tuned in to watch the final.

I can’t imagine why anyone would want to sit in front of the telly watching somebody bake a cake, but cookery programmes are extremely popular, presumably because so many people cook. M...

Feeling at home in the Apennines

Any search for books about the Apennines which aren’t travel guides, leads inexorably to one book: Eric Newby’s Love and War in the Apennines.

Newby is one of Britain’s best-loved travel writers, and Love and War in the Apennines is regarded by many as his best book. It’s more a biography than a travel book. It covers the time he spent as a prisoner during the Second World War after being captured during a raid on Sicily and sent to the town of Fontanellato in the Northern Apennines. When Ita...

Sherpa: They Live, We Come Back

Judging by the number of words I’ve expended on the subject, you can be forgiven for believing I enjoy wading into the debate and defending the right of ordinary people like myself to pay Sherpas to help us achieve the dream of climbing Everest (and therefore, the right of Sherpas to earn an income from doing so).

The truth is, I don’t really. The argument gets a bit boring as it gets more vitriolic. The vitriol nearly always originates from people who are badly informed. Haters will hate, an...

Everest is not piled high with dead bodies

<!-- <blockquote>When you die, you want to die a beautiful death. But what makes for a beautiful death is not always clear. To die without suffering, to die without causing trouble to others, to die leaving behind a beautiful corpse, to die looking good - it's not clear what is meant by a beautiful death. Does a beautiful death refer to the way you die or the condition of your corpse after death? This distinction is not clear. And when you start to stretch the image of death to the method of how to dispose of...<!-- </blockquote></p>

An early history of the 8000m peaks: the first ascent of Annapurna

This is the third in a short series of posts about the early history of the 8000m peaks. In the first post I introduced three memorable characters and in the second I looked at the Sherpa contribution. Today I examine the most famous 8000m peak expedition of all.

Maurice Herzog was leader of the French expedition that set out for Nepal in 1950 with the specific aim of making the very first ascent of an 8000m peak. To begin with, they weren’t sure which mountain they were going to climb, as lo...

A 250-page love letter to Nepal

I take a seat in the shade against the ochre walls of the house, listening to the rush of Nepali voices, the snort of a buffalo tethered in a nearby field, the background buzz of cicadas, the distant rumble of the river carried by a stray breeze … and come to recognise the special relationship that has developed between me and this land. In that recognition I know the meaning of contentment. Kev Reynolds, Abode of the Gods

In 2006 I trekked the Annapurna Circuit with three friends. We travell...

Win a pair of Scarpa Phantom 8000 boots that have been to the summit of Manaslu

I am in the process of clearing my flat of stuff I no longer have a use for, and one of the things I’m looking to dispose of are a pair of Scarpa Phantom 8000 mountaineering boots that I have not worn since I upgraded to La Sportiva Olympus Mons for my Everest expedition in 2012.

The boots have been to the summits of Manaslu (8163m), Aconcagua (6959m), Mera Peak (6476m) and Island Peak (6189m). I have also worn them above 6000m on Cho Oyu, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Baruntse.

Scarpa Phan...

2Mbps broadband available on Mount Everest, claims UK cable company

Here’s another one to put in the dubious claims about Everest file.

This week a few news sites have been reporting that five places in the UK (Ashwell, Miserden, Brent Knoll, Ulverston and Gilsland) have slower broadband internet speeds than Everest.

UK villages have slower broadband speeds than Mount Everest proclaimed a headline in Newsweek.

“These speeds are slower than the 2Mbps average internet speed found on the Himalayan mountain post,” the article went on.

Is this monk really better o...

Winter on Nanga Parbat: a good news story from Pakistan

I seem to have spent a disproportionate amount of time in the last couple of years blogging bad news from the Himalayas and Karakoram. Natural disasters and political turmoil have made Nepal an unhappy place recently. Both of these factors have spilled over into mountaineering, and Himalayan mountaineering itself has suffered from negative media reporting.

Pakistan’s mountainous geography has the potential to make it a great alternative travel destination to Nepal, but religious intolerance a...