Doubt, fear’s twin brother, confidently raised it’s beastly head today. It came as I stared upward at the imposing chimneys. It was there again as I followed my partner’s lead…
Category: Alpine Notes
Musings of an alpine nature…
Cassiopeia and Ursa Major make their slow, daily rotation around the hulking 6,611 meter shoulder of the Nanda Devi satellite peak, Nanda Khat (the bed of Nanda Devi). The squeak…
All I want to do is lie back down, curl up and rest. Sleep won’t come, but the lethargy is winning its battle. “I accidentally put your drom in upside…
Above me white puffs of cloud swirl in and out of blue skies. They coalesce out of nothingness, dance and paint the blue sky canvas with strokes that I want…
Isn’t actually a road at all, at least in the direction from which we are approaching. Initially it is a wide expanse of white snow, a veritable palette of potential…
“So, you want to rope up?” I ask Anna. “I’ve been on a glacier once, that was in the Winds” she replies. “So it is your call.” I hesitate and…
“I can’t get all this stuff into my pack.” Whether the first day, the second, or the day after a ten day re-ration, the comment is inevitable. Over the duration…
Bugaboo: an object of fear or alarm; a bogey. Upon seeing the gendarme high on the south ridge of the then unnamed Bugaboo Spire, Conrad Kain, during the first ascent…
As usual, I wished for rain. It is always easier on the ego than feigning a case of the Sphinx Sphincter or Gannett Gut, things that are failings of the…
How can something so beautiful be so, so… unforgiving, or maybe unwelcoming? The mountains of New Zealand are cruel mistresses. They tempt me with their beauty, accessibility and challenge. I…
“Why do we have to go so early? Will it be a long day?” Hannah asks. “That is a good question” I think to myself. “Well there are a couple…
“I like the sound of rain on the fly” Jim says, half prone in his red, mummy bag. “It is especially good when you know you don’t have to go…
Twenty-four hours ago we waded, almost thoughtlessly, across the calf deep McCoy Stream, climbed the stony embankment and walked to the small hut on the north side of the creek.…
October 1st 2013 1100 — “Man, sometimes the group decision making process drives me insane” Sean utters as he crawls into the vestibule. One hand holds the tent door fabric…