Hozza's Rambles

Dervla Murphy on Baltistan

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 14:00:35 +0000

“It will break my heart to leave the beauty, the silence and the endless variety of these mountains. Yet I shall be taking with me some of this strangely fortifying Himalayan peace. And it will endure. There is nothing ephemeral about the effects of a journey such as this.”

- Dervla Murphy, Where the Indus is Young

How reintroducing wolves benefits the whole ecosystem

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:10:46 +0000

I watched a fantastic documentary on BBC4 last night which demonstrated how the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park in the United States benefited the entire ecosystem almost immediately. Part of the Nature’s Microworlds series, it’s well worth catching on the iPlayer if you get a chance.

Wolves had been eradicated from the park 70 years earlier as part of pest-control measures (yes, really) and were reintroduced in the 1990s. Here’s what happened.

The population of coyotes, which had grown out of control from having no predators or competitors, shrunk to more natural levels
With the coyote threat reduced the population of pronghorn antelopes rose immediately (they are too quick for wolves)
Bears benefited because wolf packs often leave behind unfinished carcasses for them to scavenge
The elk population, which had become accustomed to eating tree saplings on riverbanks, moved to less open areas where they were at less risk from wolf packs
With the elk gone, riverbanks which had become sandy and silted started to grow birch and aspen trees again
Beavers returned to the riverbanks and started to build dams from the newly grown trees
Beaver dams caused an increase in water-borne plants
More water-borne plants meant a richer habitat in the rivers and more fish
More fish in the rivers meant an increase in the otter and osprey populations

A positive story all round, you would think, but there is a sting in the tale which wasn’t covered in the documentary. In December one of the alpha females featured in the programme was shot and killed quite legally by a hunter in Wyoming. The wolf was wearing a scientific monitoring collar, and three more collared wolves from the reintroduction programme have also been killed. Why is this happening? I don’t pretend to understand the motives of hunters, but perhaps a parallel here in the UK is the farming community that wishes to cull our native population of foxes and badgers. An item on the wolf-hunter story in Yellowstone was published recently in Outside magazine.

The reintroduction of wolves into the Scottish Highlands has often been talked about, and after watching the BBC programme it seems obvious that Scottish wildlife will benefit in the same way. Much of the Scottish countryside has long been denuded by red deer which no longer have any natural predators. There would probably be no trees at all were the red deer population not culled by humans every year.

It’s unlikely wolves will be reintroduced into Scotland any time soon. The move would be too controversial, and hill walkers like me would have to take up fencing in order to learn how to fend them off with our trekking poles. Personally, though, I’d much rather see wolves on the hills than wind farms.

Is the mountaineer Phil Crampton Richard III's distant relative?

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:50:00 +0000

With the cities of York and Leicester engaged in an unseemly tug-of-war for the bones of King Richard III, I can exclusively reveal the city of New York has entered the contest to inter the corpse of the former English monarch, who died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

Archaeologists from the University of Leicester uncovered the bones of King Richard, the last English king from the House of York, underneath a car park in Leicester last year. Earlier this week they announced that a DNA test using DNA from a distant relative now living in North America confirmed that the bones are those of Richard III. A reconstruction of the king’s face was also revealed at a press conference to announce the find.

I can reveal that the mystery donor of the DNA is none other than five times Everest summiteer and expedition leader Phil Crampton, owner of the mountaineering company Altitude Junkies. Of course, you only need to look at the above photos to see that it doesn’t take a DNA test to confirm the two men are related.

Since the results of the test were announced prominent figures from Leicester and York have been engaged in a battle of words over where the king’s body should now be buried. Originally from Nottingham, Phil has lived in New York for more than 20 years, and residents of the city believe this gives it two good reasons to be the Yorkist king’s final resting place.

“But he doesn’t look anything like me!” protested Phil when I spoke to him earlier this week. “I’ve always modelled my hair on the Stuart monarch Charles I.”

King Charles I was beheaded by Oliver Cromwell in 1649. With his two regal style gurus meeting such gruesome ends, the good news for Phil is that his haircut must have been in fashion for nearly 200 years. The bad news, of course, is that it isn’t any longer.

BBC proves not all Everest documentaries have to be crap

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 10:17:08 +0000

Congratulations to the BBC for their fantastic documentary Climbing Everest with a Mountain on My Back, shown on BBC4 last night, which provided insight into the lives of the Sherpas who help western mountaineers climb Everest every year. The film is available on BBC iPlayer until 6th February, and I recommend you give it a watch.

Unlike the usual brainless rubbish that film makers tend to make about Everest these days, the BBC put together a thoughtful and heartfelt programme oozing with a love of Nepal and its people, including Sherpa culture, Tibetan Buddhism and a little bit of mountaineering history.

I particularly enjoyed it because it reminded me of so many great memories, and so many places and moments I remember. This is going to take a while, but it included amazing footage filmed from the cockpit of a plane flying to the scary airstrip at Lukla, Pangkongma monastery on the Mera Peak trail, the market in Khandbari, rice and sorghum fields on the Makalu Base Camp trail, sipping Tongba through straws in a teahouse, picking leeches off boots and shoes on a monsoon trek, climbing the headwall on Island Peak, shopping for souvenirs in Thamel, the crazy traffic in Kathmandu, Swayambhunath Stupa on a hill above Kathmandu, Tengboche monastery on the Everest Base Camp trail, a puja ceremony to the mountain gods on Everest, and most vividly for me, climbing the north side of Everest with footage all the way up to the Exit Cracks on the Northeast Ridge.

How had the Beeb done it, and included so many things every visitor to Nepal and Tibet will be familiar with? One reason might be because the film was co-written by Jochen Hemmleb, a climber and Everest historian, who has spent a great deal of time among the Sherpas and their country, and whose motivation is to tell their story with fondness, rather than generate controversy. Well done to the Beeb for allowing him to do so.

Why Google+ has become too creepy to sign into

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:40:00 +0000

Here’s a page from my website, containing a photograph of Buddhist monks conducting a puja ceremony for mountaineers at an expedition base camp.

My site uses Google AdSense to deliver adverts based on my website content, and as you can see, it’s delivered a nice relevant advert for Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void on Amazon, a popular book about an incredible mountaineering survival story.

Now let’s see what happens to the page if I sign into my Google account:

As you can see, Google has now decided that instead of staying in to read Touching the Void, I would much rather go and see Jane, a teenager who lives four miles away and dresses like a prostitute. I don’t know how Jane feels about having her image thrust in front of a man twice her age who lives down the road, but the man in question, an avid reader of mountaineering literature who’s not terribly interested in dating teenage girls, much prefers the ad that was there before.

Why has Google done this? Instead of delivering an ad based on the content I was looking at (as good a method as any for delivering adverts, as it’s reasonable to assume anyone looking at a website about mountaineering might be interested in adverts about mountaineering too) they now know a little more about me, so they have decided to deliver adverts based on my personal data instead.

So what do they know about me? From my Google profile they know my age, gender, and location, but evidently not my browsing habits, or they would know that I don’t visit dating websites but do spend a lot of time on Amazon. It’s possible (though I haven’t checked) that my Google profile is also linked to my Facebook profile, and this has enabled Facebook to deliver an advert based on what they know about me (which is a lot more than Google does, but still not enough to figure out I prefer reading mountaineering books to dating teenagers).

Google has an Ad Preferences Manager, enabling users to opt out of personalised ads if they prefer. I’ve found it doesn’t work very reliably, and more than once I’ve opted out only to find myself opted back in again, but in any case this isn’t really the point. Most users won’t be aware of this option. Perhaps I’m being prudish, but I doubt there are many people who like being served creepy adverts alerting them to teenage girls in their location, and those who do probably shouldn’t be served them.

Personalisation is a good thing, but like anything in life it needs to be done with moderation. Until Google exercises more discretion and realises their adverts are becoming a little bit creepy, whenever possible I will be browsing the internet while logged out of my Google account

glacierworks: We so admire Vittorio Sella and the crisp,...

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:00:57 +0000

glacierworks:

We so admire Vittorio Sella and the crisp, breathtaking images captured during his many expeditions. Sella’s timeless photography provides a base for our work in the Karakoram - the Western Himalaya - which has the largest collection of 8,000m peaks in the world. Read more about Sella and other pioneering alpine photographers on our “Team” page at http://www.glacierworks.org/the-team/.

panopticongallery:

Vittorio Sella, Panorama of the Baltoro Glacier with Mitre Peak, Mustagh Tower, and K2 in the Background 1909

A VIEW FROM THE TOP | BRADFORD WASHBURN AND VITTORIO SELLA

Through February 25 at Panopticon Gallery

"It was easier to prepare ourselves in the cave for the day’s climbing than it had been in the..."

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 20:13:00 +0000

“It was easier to prepare ourselves in the cave for the day’s climbing than it had been in the cramped tents lower down. We were sealed and protected in a constant temperature and tomblike silence from the weather outside. Here there was no frozen condensation to knock into our sleeping bags, or a groundsheet to spike with our crampons. We wriggled out into the daylight fully armoured to ‘do battle with the elephants’, as someone said.”

- Pete Boardman, Sacred Summits

"There should be some stronger word than ‘mountains’ for the Andes; after all, even in..."

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 11:00:01 +0000

“There should be some stronger word than ‘mountains’ for the Andes; after all, even in Ireland we have things called ‘mountains’.”

- Dervla Murphy, Eight Feet in the Andes

bookweirdo: In the Footsteps of Whymper: Climbing Ecuador’s...

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:15:58 +0000

bookweirdo:

In the Footsteps of Whymper: Climbing Ecuador’s volcanoes
by Mark Horrell. $0.99 from Smashwords.com
This is the story of Mark Horrell’s journey in the highlands of Ecuador following in the footsteps of the Victorian mountaineer Edward Whymper, who is best-known for making the very first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. In 1879 he made first ascents of nearly all of Ecuador’s highest mountains, and Mark was determined to find out more by climbing some of them himself…..

It’s all about the books: The Book Weirdo

"From one of our stations we saw more of this Karakoram country than from any other station I visited..."

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 18:54:11 +0000

“From one of our stations we saw more of this Karakoram country than from any other station I visited that summer. As far as we could see there was a turbulent ocean of peaks without so much as a glimpse of earth in repose. It hardly seemed possible there should be so much of so disturbed a landscape.”

- Michael Spender

Myatts Fields wins a Green Flag award

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:06:00 +0000

My local park, Myatts Fields, just across the road from where I live, has just come 10th in a national poll of Britain’s favourite parks and gardens.

The park has recently been redeveloped, and the award is a credit to all the people at Lambeth Council responsible for making it what it is. I run round it most most mornings, and it’s nice to have it there. The nation’s 10th favourite park, though, this seems surprising? It’s tiny, you can walk across it in 2 minutes flat and be out the other side. It’s hard to believe there aren’t ten nicer parks than this one in the whole of the country.

The poll was for the favourite park, however, and not the best one. One of the reason Myatts Fields is enjoyed by so many could be because there aren’t many green spaces left in Lambeth, and our local councillors seem to have a policy of giving the go ahead to building projects on every bit of open space in the borough they can find.

I hope our councillors will take note, and realise that we treasure our green spaces, though I’m not very confident they will.

Not a good time to spill that bucket of paint! meme-rage: Ever...

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 18:02:41 +0000

Not a good time to spill that bucket of paint!

meme-rage:

Ever wondered how photographers take pictures of rock climbers?

"I have since repeated the climb several times, and each time I was more amazed … that we..."

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 16:40:12 +0000

“I have since repeated the climb several times, and each time I was more amazed … that we should have regarded the ascent of Nelion as so very difficult. Each step became so engraved on my memory that it seemed commonplace and perfectly straightforward … This experience of repeating a climb, the first ascent of which I had made myself, showed me very clearly how it was that mountains in the Alps, which had resisted the attacks of pioneers for so long and had appeared to them such desperate ventures, should come to be regarded as quite easy. To a lesser extent, too, this illustrates the main difference between “guided” and “guideless” climbing.”

- Eric Shipton, Upon That Mountain

The Chestnut Bridge, Starabridge Woods

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 12:42:23 +0000

This bridge crosses the River Lynher near Rilla Mill, Cornwall, and links the public footpath through Starabridge Woods to the community woodland at Broad Wood. The bridge is the trunk from an old chestnut tree that fell across the river about ten years ago, and was made by flattening the surface and covering it with netting, and providing a steel cable handrail. Alas the bridge has now been condemned as unsafe and a new footbridge is being built nearby.

"At the summit we were a few moments too late, for the mist, driving up, gave only momentary glimpses..."

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:50:21 +0100

“At the summit we were a few moments too late, for the mist, driving up, gave only momentary glimpses into the valleys beneath. The mountain-top is like a stunted tower rising from among ruins and crowned by three or four low turrets, upon which we sat, feet inward.”

- Sir Halford Mackinder, upon completing the first ascent of Batian, Mount Kenya, 13 September 1899.

peerintothepast: #Mountaineering #History 1930’s

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 07:56:40 +0100

peerintothepast:

#Mountaineering #History 1930’s

Glaciers are brilliant Every once in a while you see something...

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 17:29:00 +0100

Glaciers are brilliant

Every once in a while you see something that reminds you what an amazing place the natural world is, and that happened to me today. This video by glaciologist Allen Pope (@PopePolar) from the Scott Polar Research Institute is so ace that I just had to share it.

I spend a lot of time gazing at mountains, but the absolute best ones are always decorated by glaciers, and none of them look the same. As this video demonstrates they come in many different colours - white, red, crystal, golden and cerulean (a word I’ll remember to use more often) are just a few of the ones shown here - and many different textures - cracked, streaked, dusted, striped and marbled are again just a few.

I won’t spoil the rest for you. It’s a work of art - enjoy!

"We could appreciate the snow-streaked mountains in the far far distance; unreal peaks, like a..."

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 23:07:00 +0100

“We could appreciate the snow-streaked mountains in the far far distance; unreal peaks, like a five-year-old’s drawing of ‘mountains’ - so needle-sharp and remote one couldn’t quite believe in them.”

- Dervla Murphy, Eight Feet in the Andes

Altitude Junkies summit Manaslu

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 08:11:16 +0100

Huge congratulations to the 15 members of the Altitude Junkies team (6 clients, 8 Sherpas and expedition leader Phil Crampton) who have just returned safely to Samagaon after summiting Manaslu on Monday.

Ten days ago they were lying in their tents at Camp 2 when a huge avalanche struck, uprooting their tents and catapulting them five metres down the mountain. Up at Camp 3 eleven people died and many more were injured and helicoptered to safety.

Many people understandably abandoned their expeditions after the avalanche, and I think I would have done the same. But these guys are made of stronger stuff. It’s hard to imagine what they must have gone through, but they dusted themselves down, licked their wounds, waited for a suitable weather window and went back up.

I was particularly pleased for three of the summiteers. Mila Mikhanovskaya reached Camp 4 on Manaslu with us last year, but was suffering from cold fingers and didn’t make a summit attempt. A few years ago I spent two months on Gasherbrum in Pakistan with wise-cracking Canadian Gordon Ferguson, but we had atrocious weather and weren’t able to make a summit attempt. Although he reached the fore summit of Broad Peak many years ago he has had a lot of bad luck on 8000 metre peaks and this was his first true summit, which he did without supplementary oxygen. Nobody deserves it more. Chongba Sherpa reached the summit of Manaslu for the second time. I stood on the summit with him this time last year, and owe him a great deal. I’m absolutely thrilled to see him there again in so very different circumstances.

Somewhere deep in every wood is an old swing made from a...

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:34:00 +0100

Somewhere deep in every wood is an old swing made from a tyre. Dunlop’s Law