is humbling that so many people have encouraged and helped me with this book. There are far too many to name check individually so let me begin with a big thank you to you unsung heroes.
To the many people with whom I have shared the hills and climbed routes, often experiencing epics along the way, ‘Cheers’ for the great mountain days. To my many sponsors over the years who made it all possible: your help is greatly appreciated, thank you.
My Grandma deserves a mention – she put up with her grandson risking his life for months on end in the last years of hers – as does Fiona, my daughter, whose Dad disappeared for long periods of time while she was growing up. I kept in touch on early expeditions by hiring mail runners and persuading passing trekkers to deliver letters, progressing to satellite phones and hefty bills on later ones.
Captain Peter Jackson sorted me out when I suffered a prolapsed disc on Nanga Parbat. Keith Wickham got me cycle training after my leg wound on Makalu. David Thomasson made some great documentaries along with Graham Marples, who also nudged me to get writing. Keith and Joan Cook were there to share and enjoy my success along with Pasang Gelu.
Les Simm was a great help in Kathmandu on my final expeditions and Bikrum Pandey has been there for me for most of them. Thanks also to Paul Havery and Dave Picken for IT support and encouragement, Ian Mulingani for letting me wash up and Lloyd Murray for his enthusiasm.
Joe Cornish’s superlative landscape photographs are an inspiration to me and Joe and Jenny took an enthusiastic interest in my own mountain images.
A special thanks has to go to Mike and Marian Parsons for their hospitality and genuine enthusiasm for the book; without them I do not know what would have become of this book, or me; my simple thanks are not enough. Thanks also to my publisher, Jonathan Williams at Cicerone, for his patience over the years.
Finally to my grandchildren, Jay and Mia, for spreading sunshine and happiness in the way that only grandchildren can.
ALAN HINKES
Stripped bare by jet stream winds, the snowless summit ridge of Dhaulagiri was not what I was expecting at over 8000m. Crampons scratch and skitter over the exposed rock as Pasang Gelu sets off down from the summit.
Brian Blessed relaxes on Everest’s North Col, at 7000m, during his intrepid bid for the summit in 1996.
FOREWORD
What a privilege to write the foreword for a book by such a remarkable man as Alan Hinkes. How does one appraise such a character?
This book is a celebration. It is a tale of extraordinary courage and sustained and tenacious endeavour. Books about intrepid adventures and explorers have always fired my imagination and left me begging for more. Such people are our dreams made flesh and blood. Alan fits the bill perfectly; he is the personification of the spirit of adventure.
It is hard to envisage the vast scale of the Himalaya and Karakoram. This is a land of astonishing and gigantic mountains, most of them higher than any other peaks in the rest of the world and Alan Hinkes is the only Briton to summit the 14 highest, all above 8000m.
In 1996 I climbed with him on the north side of Everest and we actually enjoyed suffering together on that cold dangerous mountain where Mallory and Irvine disappeared. One evening I made my way down the Rongbuk Glacier and became enveloped in darkness on steep hazardous terrain. Fortunately Alan arrived behind me with a torch and painstakingly guided me down to safety and I am deeply grateful to him.
Many factors of awe-inspiring magnitude face those who seek adventure among the highest peaks: climbing difficulties and avalanches; vertical scale; climatic conditions; and frightful altitude problems! The brain has a well-known intolerance for lack of oxygen, mountain sickness with acute pulmonary and cerebral oedema being the major problems. On Everest I witnessed several deaths and permanent damage to body and brain as a result of anoxia. Driven and highly motivated, Alan subjected himself for extended periods to all of these risks. With supreme courage he coped with fatigue, cold, insomnia, diminished appetite and psychogenic stress. He transcended it all to the astonished admiration of both his fellow climbers and the nation.
His amazing photographs tell it all. The great white sweep of the Himalaya! A never-ending ocean of colossal resplendent mountains, blinding in their brilliance as they reach out to a cobalt blue sky. Alan writes as he talks, with passion and simplicity, building on a natural knack for storytelling. He conveys fantastic images of wild landscapes full of vast ridges, an array of colours, deep yawning crevasses and intimidating precipices.
People frequently ask me why climbers keep going from mountain to mountain. I am woefully unable to answer. I cannot fathom the innermost thoughts of the climbing fraternity. But one thing is certain – Alan does not have a death wish. Quite the contrary, he has a life wish. He has determination, an inner strength, a delightful sense of humour and a love of all that is worthwhile. I admire him for it.
The man is truly a legend! His staggering achievement is a clarion call to all who wish to fulfil their dreams. He bellows: ‘Nothing is impossible!’
I salute my fellow Yorkshireman.
BRIAN BLESSED
Camels in the Shaksgam River, 1994. This route, explored by Francis Younghusband in 1887, is a long and hazardous approach to the north side of K2 in China. Negotiating the flooded river in summer, when the vast, braided torrent covers most of the valley floor, carries a serious risk of being swept away.
Everest (left) and Cho Oyu (right) from the village of Tingri at 4300m on the Tibetan Plateau.
Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
WH Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
PREFACE
This book is a snapshot of my personal 18-year quest to climb all 14 of the 8000m peaks and tells the story of my ascents of the highest mountains in the world. There were many other expeditions
