Mick Fowler is the master of the small and remote Himalayan expedition. He has been at the forefront of this pioneering approach to alpinism for over thirty years, balancing his family life, a full-time job at the tax office and his annual trips to the greater ranges in order to attempt mountains that may never have been seen before by Westerners, let alone climbed by them.
In this episode I talk to him about how he juggled his full time job as a tax man with his climbing career in which he achieved some of the most noteworthy ascents of his generation. Mick is a long way from the professional climbers who’s lives are obsessed with climbing yet he has achieved more than many elite climbers in his forty years in the mountains. In his early years Mick and his friends would make epic drives from their London base to establish new routes on the ice cliffs of the Scottish Highlands. Now he has retired Mick has new plans to climb in the Himalayas.
In No Easy Way, his third volume of climbing memoirs following Vertical Pleasure and On Thin Ice, Fowler recounts a series of expeditions to stunning mountains in China, India, Nepal and Tibet. Alongside partners including Paul Ramsden, Dave Turnbull, Andy Cave and Victor Saunders, he attempts striking, technically challenging unclimbed lines on Shiva, Gave Ding and Mugu Chuli – with a number of ascents winning prestigious Piolets d’Or, the Oscars of the mountaineering world.
Buy Mick’s fascinating book No Easy Way with 30% off and get On Thin Ice free. OFFER ENDS 4th MAY
