Back to Nepal for Alzheimer’s
My passion is climbing and my life’s purpose is as an Alzheimer’s Advocate. In that spirit, I’m excited to share this announcement with my friends, supporters, and followers that I’m returning to Nepal in October 2018 for the 12th time. I will be climbing again and raising money for the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, a non-profit organization […]
Autumn 2018 Himalayan Climbing Moving Along
The Autumn Himalayan climbing season continues to progress without a lot of drama or fanfare. The supply situation on Manaslu seems to have been corrected and overall, the weather is cooperating this September. There are no teams on Everest this autumn. Cho Oyu The world’s sixth highest peak at 26,907’/8201m is the second most popular […]
Autumn 2018 Himalayan Climbing Has Poor Start on Manalsu
With the finger pointing underway, climbers are caught in the middle between the largest operator, Seven Summits Treks and the Nepal Government. Confusion around helicopters are preventing supplies from being flown into Manaslu base camp. Cho Oyu The world’s sixth highest peak at 26,907’/8201m is the second most popular 8000er after Everest with over 3,500 […]
Autumn 2018 Himalayan Climbing Begins
If it is early September, it must mean a migration to the big mountains of Tibet and Nepal. After being closed to climbing last year, Tibet is open and the usual suspects will be busy. Reports have it that more than 350 foreign climbers supported by over 300 Sherpas will be on the five Nepal and […]
Nepal Guide Fined and Climbers Sentenced to Jail for forged Everest Permits
News broke in July, 2018 that Sherpa owned and operated guide company, Seven Summits Treks (SST), had forged Everest climbing permits for two clients cheating the Government out of $22,000 in royalty fees. SST has been fined double the permit fees and the clients fined and sentenced to jail time. Caught When the Himalayan Times […]
Everest Rescue Scams Expose Corruption Across Nepal
A war has been brewing between the Everest rescue/insurance companies and the local operators for years now. This summer the battle hit the tipping point when a thorough investigative report by AFP reporter Annabel Symington found systematic cooperation amongst local guide companies, helicopter services and even some hospitals in Kathmandu to scam the rescue/insurance companies […]
Update: 2018 Oxygen Failure on Everest – Regulator Recall
Followers of the Everest 2018 spring climbing season will recall that a few teams experienced a failure of their supplemental oxygen systems provided by the UK company, Summit Oxygen (SO). While alarming, to maintain a sense of perspective, it was 25 out of 500 to 1,000 that regulators failed, not a massive failure as some […]
My Summit Video from the 2014 K2 Climb
It took a while but I finally got around to editing all my K2 video clips from our 2014 summit climb into one short (33 minute) video. As regular readers remember, all my climbs are to raise awareness and research funds for Alzheimer’s Disease. I became the oldest American at age 58 and the 18th […]
HBO Special on Everest: A Missed Opportunity
I’ve been an avid fan of HBO Real Sports for years, but when it comes to Everest, they seem to miss golden opportunities to tell the “Real” story. For Everest Haters, this segment will reenforce their beliefs. For Everest fans, they will immediately sees the holes in the reporting and for everyone else, they will […]
K2 2018 Summer Coverage: Season Summary
The K2 2018 summer season has come to an end when the Austrian operator Furtenbach Adventures declared the weather window had closed and they spent too much time on Broad Peak thus missing their K2 opportunity. Overall, K2 saw over 60 summits – a record – by several different teams. As always with K2, there were […]