Category Archives: General

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Paragliding – Easter weekend, 2007

Diana and I spent Easter in Devon and on the way down we stopped for some flying at Westbury. It was a beautiful day but the winds were light. The flying was very ‘scratchy’ and I probably managed about an hour of flying in total that day (Easter Friday). Met up with Jim Mallinson, Mark […]

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Lunar Eclipse – 3rd March, 2007

We were in the Lakes this weekend planning on doing a little rock climbing or even some flying if the winds were right. We met up with some buddies from a previous 2004 Everest expedition in Tibet. (Ray Smith, Mike Brennan, Rick Taylor and Baz Roberts) The rain held off more or less on the […]

Frostbite update – 12th February

On Wednesday 7th February, my brother, Ben, had to have a further operation on his toes. They were not healing as they should and so the surgeon was forced to take a little more off three of the damaged toes. He used a device called a ‘nibbler’ which quite literally nibbled the bone back more […]

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Ashdown House School Lecture

On Wednesday 24th January, I was invited to speak at Ashdown House School with Ben. It was nearly 25 years since we were there ourselves and it was wonderful to see all the changes and to meet a handful of teachers who taught us when we were there! After the lecture some of the pupils […]

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Old Man of Hoy

First ascent: Tom Patey, Rusty Baillie, Chris Bonnington 1966.Original Route on the East Face (460 feet) (E1 or 5b) This is one of the most famous sea stacks in Britain and it is composed of rather decaying Orcadian sandstone standing on a granite plinth and features five climbs ranging from an acceptable El right up […]

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Skydiving – September 2007

What next…? My buddy Karl, has invited me to Spain where we want to jump together. The plan is that I will learn to skydive by doing an Accelerated Free Fall course. He will join me for the fun as he has over 500 jumps to his name. That is him in the yellow suit […]

RGS Lecture: SOLD OUT

We have completely sold out of tickets for the lecture at the Royal Geographical Society on 7th December, 2006. Over 700 tickets have been sold. Please do not apply for any more tickets because we don’t have any left! Thank you to all those who are coming. We hope you will enjoy it!

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View from the summit of Everest

I took this photo on May 18th, 2006 at about 7.45am. It looks directly towards Base Camp on the Tibetan side (to the middle of the photo just beyond the glacial lake) The photo below, taken from Outer Space, is taken looking the other way! We were lucky to have such a clear day.

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Everest from Outer Space!

This photo really blew me away. Mount Everest and Lhotse (4th highest mountain) can clearly be seen in the upper right hand part of the picture with clouds whipping off the top, with Makalu (5th highest mountain) out to the left. The vast Tibetan Plateau can be seen in the foreground and one can even […]

Frostbite

My brother, Ben, had an operation last Wednesday 25th October where they removed four blackened toes on his left foot which was caused by the extreme cold on our Everest ascent on May 18th, 2006. The operation went as well as expected and Ben will be back on his feet soon. He joins the likes […]