Footsteps on the Mountain Diaries Series

In April 2012 Mark Horrell travelled to Tibet hoping to become, if not the first person to climb Mount Everest, at least the first Karl Pilkington lookalike to do so. He joined a mountaineering expedition which included an Australian sexagenarian, two Brits whose idea of hydration meant a box of red wine, and a New Zealander who enjoyed reminding his teammates of the perils of altitude sickness and the number of ways they might die on summit day. The media often write about Mount Everest deaths and how easy the world’s highest mountain has become to climb, but how accurately does this reflect reality? The Chomolungma Diaries is a true story of ordinary people climbing Mount Everest with a commercial expedition, and preparing for the biggest day of their lives. Imagine your life clipped into a narrow line of cord five miles above the earth, on the world’s most terrifying ridge walk. This book will bring you just a little bit closer to that experience.

The mountain gods were protective of Manaslu, a two-pronged peak in the Nepal Himalaya, and one of the world’s fourteen 8,000m peaks. Many years ago, a Japanese team tried to climb it, but the gods had sent an avalanche in their wake which destroyed a monastery and set the local people against them. When they returned the next year, they were met with sticks and stones, stripped naked and sent home with red cheeks. Mark Horrell and his two friends Mark and Ian shared a dream to climb an 8,000m peak, but it seemed the gods were against them too. They had made no fewer than eight attempts without success (though they had managed to return with their clothes on). With towering ice walls, monsoon rainstorms, arm-twisting crevasses and – most dangerous of all – welcoming teahouses ready to entrap them, would it be different this time?

In April 2014 Mark Horrell went on a mountaineering expedition to Nepal, hoping to climb Lhotse, the fourth-highest mountain in the world, which shares a base camp and climbing route with Mount Everest. He dreamed of following in the footsteps of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, by climbing through the infamous ice maze of the Khumbu Icefall, and he yearned to sleep in the grand amphitheatre of Everest Base Camp, surrounded by towering peaks. He was also intrigued by the media publicity surrounding commercial expeditions to Everest. He wanted to discover for himself whether it had become the circus that everybody described. But when a devastating avalanche swept across the Khumbu Icefall, he got more than he bargained for. Suddenly he found himself witnessing the greatest natural disaster Everest had ever seen. And that was just the start. Everest Sherpas came out in protest, issuing a list of demands to the Government of Nepal. What happened next left his team confused, bewildered and fearing for their safety.