Tonight: Expert mountaineer Sandy Allan to present at Revelstoke library

Scottish mountain guide Sandy Allan will visit Revelstoke to speak about his astonishing first ascent in 2012 of the Mazeno Ridge on the world’s ninth highest mountain Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas.

Scottish mountain guide Sandy Allan. Photo: contributed

Nanga Parbat, at 8,125 metres, is one of only 14 mountains over 8,000 metres and its summit has been reached by several different routes: except by a long west-southwest arête called the Mazeno Ridge. The ridge is a daunting 13-kilometres long with seven peaks above 7,000 metres. It was no wonder that Sandy had a hard time getting a climbing team together; and it proved impossible to keep the team members committed to seeing the climb through to the summit.

Follow Sandy Allan on Twitter

Awesome route setting with Nat and Scott #whitecliffs pic.twitter.com/CzXk3KaoP0

— Sandy Allan (@CairngormSandy) September 29, 2015

Rick Allen, 59, would stick with Sandy (57 at the time of the climb) until the end, just barely hanging on to his sanity and some of his severely frostbitten toes. The climb took 18 days instead of the predicted 10 at most and the men endured the last three days without food or water.

Timing is everything and deep snow and exhaustion typically get in the way of sticking to a tight schedule, but with impossibly steep faces on either side of the Mazeno Ridge, climbers reach a point of no return once they are about half the way along the ridge and Sandy and Rick decided to continue after the rest of the team decided to descend.

It was an amazing accomplishment and it won the two climbers the coveted Piolet D’Or Award in 2013. Sandy Allan writes about the climb in his new book, In Some Lost Place: The first ascent of Nanga Parbat’s Mazeno Ridge.

The book was nominated for the Boardman Tasker prize in 2015. It is an absolutely gripping read with just enough personal drama and history mixed in with the suspenseful and detailed account of the climb itself.

One reviewer (Mike Nash for the Federation of Mountain Clubs of BC) describes it as “a model of how to write a mountaineering book. It is a beautifully-written, well-organized, edgy account of an audacious achievement by a well-matched team.”

Sandy Allen will speak at the Revelstoke Branch of the Okanagan Regional Library on Thursday, April 7 at 7 p.m.

This is a republished post.