Mark Horrell's Blog, page 52

All you need to know about the Everest fist fight

Some of you have been asking for an insightful analysis of the punch up on the Lhotse Face over the weekend. As usual people have been falling over themselves to report the story without waiting for the facts to emerge, and in the Footsteps on the Mountain team we're not averse to joining the stampede. Continue reading →

Following the Everesters

This time last year I was lying in a tent on the north side of Everest, listening to a deafening wind pound against the nylon beside my head. Every spring a few hundred people seek to share my experience by trying to climb Everest, and thanks to the miracle of modern communications, it's possible to watch from the sidelines. Continue reading →

Top rock climber accuses sunbathers of cheating

This week the Footsteps on the Mountain team caught up with champion rock climber Bill Scheidt, who has completed many first ascents on bold new routes. Bill is known for a very pure style of climbing, and over the years has become an outspoken critic of climbers who employ artificial aids to enable them to complete an ascent. But it's not just use of pitons and supplementary oxygen that make his blood boil. Continue reading →

Why Tenzing is the greatest Everest climber

While George Mallory, Edmund Hillary, Reinhold Messner and Eric Shipton all deserve their place in the Everest pantheon, if there’s to be an award for the greatest of all Everest climbers, then IMHO it should go to Tenzing Norgay, because he had to work so much harder to achieve his ambition than any of the other climbers. Continue reading →

A winter wonderland above the Bridge of Orchy

It might be April and the beginning of spring, but the conditions on Scotland's hills are still distinctly wintry. I checked the avalanche forecast before spending Easter in the hills above Bridge of Orchy, home of the poet Duncan Ban MacIntyre, famous for composing an Ode to Trousers. Continue reading →

Sherpa hospitality as a cure for frostbite

Mountaineering history is full of stories of heroic ascents which have come at a cost: loss of fingers and toes (or worse) due to frostbite. We understand how to treat frostbite injuries much better now, but one method of treatment discovered by a little known Austrian mountaineer in the 1950s, seems to have been neglected by the medical profession, and it's one that sounds quite appealing. Continue reading →

Everest by the Venables Direct Route

In 1988 a ragtag quartet of mountaineers from the USA, Canada and the UK made one of Everest's most intrepid ascents, and last Thursday I had the good fortune of attending a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society in London celebrating the 25th anniversary of their climb. Continue reading →

Is the death zone a myth?

If you've read a few things about Everest or other 8000m peaks then you've probably come across the term death zone. If you have then it's likely you reacted in one of two ways. Either your respect for the writer grew enormously or you imagined the sound of evil laughter accompanied by a dramatic organ chord. Continue reading →

Did Chinese climbers reach the summit of Everest in 1960?

There has been a lot of gushing editorial written recently to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first American ascent of Everest in 1963. I could write a bit more about the expedition here, but I wouldn't be adding anything to what's already out there. Instead I'm going to talk about another expedition which took place on Everest's north side three years earlier. Continue reading →

First ascent of Aconcagua: a story of self-inflicted altitude sickness

When the Swiss guide Matthias Zurbriggen stood on the highest point in South America in 1897, as far as anyone knew it was the highest place man had ever been, but he stood there alone. His expedition leader Edward Fitzgerald had been left behind with altitude sickness at 6000m. Continue reading →