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Altitude.....Reviewed
Altitude... Written by Jean-Marc Rochette and Olivier Bocquet: Published by SelfMadeHeroThere was a discussion recently in a climbing writing forum about where we are it with regard to the market these...
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Crevasses.....Stop worrying and learn to love the slot
Crevasse. It’s a jagged noun, treacherous with sibilance. Right in the middle there’s that pit of a V; V for very deep, very bad idea....Very scary.‘I had heard of glaciers: places where enormous holes...
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Bernadette McDonald's Winter 8000.....extract
Thanks to the late-arriving permit, the last of the Polish team’s baggage arrived in Kathmandu on 20 December 1979 and it wasn’t until 4 January that base camp was fully constructed on the south side...
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Fingertip Mistress........Cloggy's Great Wall
Sultans of Swing: Dave Towse-Left-and John Redhead camp beneath The Black CliffI relate to Clogwyn Du'r Arddu's Great Wall in two ways: obsessively, and with disinterest, both holding equal space in my...
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Winter 8000: Climbing The World’s Highest Mountains In The Coldest Season:...
Brief encounter!‘It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear beginning to live!’...Marcus AurelisBernadette McDonald continues to mine the rich history of the Polish ‘Ice Warriors’ of...
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The book of Trespass....Reviewed
The Book of Trespass-Crossing The Lines That Divide Us. Nick Hayes. 464 pages Hardback with Dust Cover and illustrated with Black/White Linocuts. Bloomsbury Circus £20.‘The stately homes of England,...
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Coledale Force- 1985
Ullock Pike-the First Snow. Bill Peascod oil/mixed mediaThe winter of 1984/5 developed into a hard freeze. Elsewhere Britain suffered under heavy blizzards. In the Lakes there was little snow. For...
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An Escape to Snowdon
Llyn Llydaw; Sidney Richard Percy-1972. We arrived,shivering, at Bettws-y-Coed. Only some three hours late, with memories of Euston Station at dawn and some thousands of people—mostly troops going on...
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Robert Mads Anderson's 'Nine Lives'....reviewed
‘Nine Lives’: Robert Mads Anderson. 208 pages black and white plus 32 pages of colour photographs. Perfect Bound Paperback. £14.95. Vertebrate Publishing. ‘You have done a very hard thing, but you...
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Allan Austin Interview
I conducted this interview for the Leeds University Union ClimbingClub Journal of 1973, the editor of which was Bernard Newman.It is fair to say at that date Allan was a (the?) leading pioneer of...
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Saved by the Burn
It wasn't until the wind blew the two of us off-balance that we realised its strength. Until we actually cannoned into each other near the summit cairn of Gars Bheinn I had persuaded myself that it...
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A Dark Shadow Falls : The Tragic Hopkinson Family.
DURING the second half of the last century British mountaineering boasted several remarkable families whose exploits have gone down in history. The Walkers, the Matthews, the Pilkingtons—these, and...
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Remembering Slingsby
William Cecil Slingsby’s book, Norway the Northern Playground, was first published in 1904. It is a tale of exploration, adventure and the exuberant joy of high endeavour. It was one of my earliest...
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Whillans at 'Treemudrock'
John Cleare's classic shot of 'The Don'.His reputation was already established when I first met him in 1962. He had agreed to come to Derby and give a lecture at our youth club and was to meet me at...
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A Dream of Edwin Drummond....Reviewed
Ed Drummond was always something of a climbing hero to me. In fact I was aware of him before I had even started climbing through his well publicised ascent of Nelson's Column with Colin Rowe to...
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Scafell : The finest climbing ground in England
There are only a few places in Britain where you can see more rock in one glance than you can from around Mickledore—and they are nearly all in Scotland. For the great cliffs of Scafell are the...
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The Decline of Tremadoc
Harold Drasdo on an obscure and rarely ascended Tremadog VS 'Wanda'. Look out for Adders if you ever fancy having a go at this slice of Tremadog esoterica!"Dismantle Milestone Buttress stone by stone,...
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Colin Kirkus: Pathfinder
The motor cycle roared north from Kendal, over Shap, towards Scotland and Ben Nevis. Crouched over the handlebars was Maurice Linnell; behind him, with a mountain of camping gear, Colin Kirkus. It was...
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Climbing in South Greenland
The Ronne moored in a cove waiting for the ice to clearThis past summer a party of seven mountaineers from Dublin went to the Tasermuit Fjord area, near Cape Farewell in South Greenland. It was...
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Two Thousand Feet Plus
An iconic image of Gwen Moffat. Barefoot climbing above the sea. Image-Johnny Lee Collection" IN TWO MILES," my husband said, "you'll strike the path. You've got your map and compass?" I looked at him...
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