In the Autumn of 2010, Mark Horrell set off to Tibet with a dozen other hopeful mountaineers, including an Olympic rowing champion and a former Welsh rugby international, to climb 8201m Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world, whose name translates as the Turquoise Goddess in Tibetan.
It was to be an extraordinary season on the mountain believed to be the simplest and safest 8000 metre peak in the world. Battered by blizzards for weeks, many climbers were caught in avalanches, and the mountain was abandoned by nearly all the teams at Base Camp before a single summit had been attained, but perhaps even more remarkably no one had died.
The eventual tally for the season was just two successful summits and one death. This is Mark Horrell's diary from the expedition, and tells the story of how events unfolded on what was to prove one of the least successful climbing seasons Cho Oyu has seen. It includes many of the author's photographs.
It was to be an extraordinary season on the mountain believed to be the simplest and safest 8000 metre peak in the world. Battered by blizzards for weeks, many climbers were caught in avalanches, and the mountain was abandoned by nearly all the teams at Base Camp before a single summit had been attained, but perhaps even more remarkably no one had died.
The eventual tally for the season was just two successful summits and one death. This is Mark Horrell's diary from the expedition, and tells the story of how events unfolded on what was to prove one of the least successful climbing seasons Cho Oyu has seen. It includes many of the author's photographs.
