Jan
22
2013
Cool has become one of the leading British mountaineers of his generation - Picture: Kenton Cool
By Matt Westby
In among the down coats and clicking of karabiners at the London Outdoor Show stands a man in a tweed jacket with orange elbow pads.
His white shirt is impeccably ironed and black shoes polished to a pristine shine that reflects the spotlights beaming on to the plinth where he waits.
A chiselled jaw and queue of autograph hunters suggest he could be an A-list celebrity who had been aiming for the boat show next door but wandered into the wrong hall.
There’s no mistake, though. English mountaineer Kenton Cool is precisely where he needs to be – and ten minutes early at that.
“I’m not meant to start till half past but I always run over and Helen Skelton is on straight after, so I think I will get on with it.”
Cool is at the show to give a talk to 80 or so spellbound spectators about his most recent ascent of Mount Everest, his British-record tenth climb to the summit of the world’s highest peak.
It is impossible not to be inspired by his achievements as he speaks about tackling the Lhotse Face and Hillary Step, yet it is the man himself that draws more admiration.
Endearing, courteous and unflinchingly positive, he spent the first five minutes of the talk quizzing young children on the front row about the snowmen they had made in the preceding days. “You built two?! Well that’s just greedy.”
Cool completed the 'Olympic Pledge' by taking a 1924 gold medal to the summit of Everest in May 2012 - Picture: Kenton Cool
Afterwards, when the appreciative applause and crowd waiting for photos have both died down, the 39-year-old from Gloucestershire steps away from the stage to explain what’s next for one of the most celebrated British mountaineers of his generation.
There might have been a temptation to make his tenth summit on Everest his last, but familiarity has bred affection rather than contempt, and with 2013 representing a landmark year on the mountain, there was never any doubt he would be going back in April.
“Everest has given me everything – it has defined my life,” Cool tells Live For Adventure. “Everest is part of me in a way and the year that I don’t go there, I will really miss it.
“I’m heading back in April because this year is the 60th anniversary of Hillary and Tenzing’s first ascent.
“I have got a client I’m going with, but we are also working in conjunction with the BBC this year and we are going to do something pretty special to celebrate the anniversary. If it works, it’s going to be amazing. It is not top secret, but we are keeping it under wraps.”
But Everest is not the only mountain on Cool’s radar, with a pioneering ascent of the 8,586m Kangchenjunga also being planned.
He says: “Next year, myself and a couple of colleagues are looking at going to a different mountain, so it will be my first year away from Everest. We want to do a new route on Kangchenjunga without oxygen, which will be getting back to my climbing routes. That will be amazing.
“Then in 2015, I will almost certainly be back on Everest because I have been asked to lead a Gurkha expedition, which will be absolutely incredible if we can pull it off.”
That Cool wants to be part of 60th anniversary celebrations on Everest is no surprise given he is as fluent in mountaineering’s history as he is the modern-day climbing skills that have enabled him to follow in the footsteps of his heroes.
Cool is quick to acknowledge the priceless value of Sherpas on Everest - Picture: Kenton Cool
He holds the likes of Sir Edmund Hillary in the highest esteem and can reel off the days, months and years of key moments of George Mallory’s expeditions as if they were family birthdays. Show him a photo of the men that set sail for the Himalayas from Southampton way back in 1922 and he could easily tell you the name and role of each of them.
His retelling of their stories at talks like the one in London have made him just as important in promoting British mountaineering’s past as he is its present, yet mention his name in the same breath as the greats and he suddenly retreats.
“The thing about my time on Everest is I have always been working, in one form or another,” he explains. “I perhaps don’t have the romance of 1922 or 1924 and the ground-breaking expeditions, or the 1970s of Sir Chris Bonington.
“If people do remember some of my achievements – perhaps getting Sir Ranulph Fiennes to the top [in 2009] or taking the 1924 Olympic gold medal in 2012 – then I would feel really honoured.”
As well as his summits on Everest, Cool has also received a nomination for the coveted Piolet d’Or award for a pioneering new route on Annapurna, made ski descents of both Cho Oyu and Manaslu, and led Fiennes – complete with stumped fingers and vertigo – up the North Face of the Eiger.
There was a time when such feats would have been rewarded with honours from the Queen – Sirs Fiennes, Hillary and Bonington being prime examples – but the days when mountaineering was cherished by mainstream Britain are long gone.
Cool doesn’t have so much as an MBE to his name and although he rues the lack of recognition for the fine men of the mountains, he insists adulation is not why they climb.
“My wife jokingly said not so long ago, ‘If you were as good a footballer as you are a mountaineer, we would be living in a big house and driving a Ferrari’,” he admits.
“But does it matter that mountaineering is not on the back pages of the papers? Not really. We don’t do it for fame and glory. We do it because of the passion of the sport: being in the mountains, being on the snow and ice, being on the rock, being in the outdoors – that is what is important.
Cool on the summit of Everest for the ninth time in 2011 - Picture: Kenton Cool
“Perhaps it is not a mainstream sport, but interestingly, it is one of only a few sports in the country where participation is growing.
“Maybe one day we will get the recognition from the media, because Britain has had an amazing heritage in mountaineering.”
As well as being deeply entrenched in the past and present of British mountaineering, Cool also has one eye on the future.
One of the themes of his talk in London was opening onlookers’ eyes to the fact that they can achieve what he has – and he is quick to point them in the direction of the world’s myriad unclimbed mountains.
“There’s an immense amount of discovery left to be done in the mountains,” he adds. “Adventure is all around us as climbers.
“Mountaineering is one of the few things where true adventures still exist – to do something that nobody has ever done before.
“They are not all hard. Some of them are relatively easy, even though they may be remote and out of the way, which is why they have not been climbed before, but they are still there.
“It’s open to anybody. There are no rules, no regulations – you can just go out and do it, and that is one of the wonderful things about mountaineering.”
Kenton Cool online
Visit his website: www.kentoncool.com
Follow him on Twitter: @KentonCool
Facebook: www.facebook.com/KentonCool
Jan
16
2013
Mount Damavand, Iran - Picture: Hamed Saber
In amongst the collection of stick-on moustaches, collapsible pocket pint glasses and packets of gingerbread men with chocolate trousers that constituted my Christmas presents this year, there was a book that could actually be of some – even great – use.
I hadn’t been expecting Lonely Planet’s “A Year of Adventures”, but by the time 3pm came around and I was collapsing full-bellied on to the sofa, this was the gift I found myself clinging to most closely.
Some of the stuff in there has been awarded a place somewhat spuriously, such as bird-watching and surfing on an artificial wave in Munich city centre, but much of the content is both original and appealing.
So even though it’s January, I thought I’d rekindle the spirit of Christmas and share one adventure for each of the months that the book is broken up into.
These are the ones I had never heard of, or was aware of but have never considered.
January – tobogganing in Switzerland
To be more specific, skeleton tobogganing, which, to the uninitiated, is the head-first variation of hurling yourself down a chute of ice. The Cresta Run in St Moritz is open to the public on non-race days and those with enough ability and raw courage are said to be able to reach speeds of up to 130kph. The run is open from late December until late February.
Meeting Place of the Spirits, Oman - Picture: Yusef Tuqan
February – Race of Hope, Cameroon
The Mount Cameroon Race is a marathon-distance dash up the highest peak in Western Africa, which tops out at 4,095m. The route follows trekking trails up the volcano and although the quickest runners cross the finish line in four-and-a-half hours, others choose to take their time and complete the course in a couple of days.
March – caving in Oman
The Middle Eastern state is home to the Meeting Place of the Spirits, which is one of the largest cave chambers in the world, with a ceiling at 120m high. Cavers abseil down into it and then climb back out. The cave, which was only discovered in 1983, is located in the Selma Plateau in Oman’s Ash Sharqiyah region.
April – volcano boarding in Nicaragua
End of the ski season? No matter, because Cerro Negro allows you to carry on boarding on it’s volcanic cinder cone for another few weeks. Beginners can also give it a try and, after a few practice runs, could find themselves reaching speeds of up to 70kph. The volcano is also the youngest in Central America and has erupted, on average, once every eight years in the last 160 years.
May – sailing the Bermuda Triangle
South Nahanni River, Canada - Picture: viajecanada
Sailing might seem a little too tranquil for some, but do it in a part of the Atlantic Ocean that has mysteriously accounted for no fewer than 100 ships and planes, and it suddenly takes on an extra edge. Some vessels have disappeared without a trace, while others have reappeared after weeks missing intact, but with their crew nowhere to be seen. Boats can be rented in Bermuda, or you can set sail from Florida.
June – climb Mount Damavand, Iran
The very concept of mountaineering in Iran is enough to grab the attention, but throw in a peak 5,671m high and a non-technical ascent, and you’ve got a seriously attractive proposition. With appropriate acclimatisation, the climb from bottom to top takes three days.
July – paddling in Canada
Located just below the Arctic Circle, the South Nahanni River offers hundreds of kilometres of navigable waterway through steep-sided canyons and past wildlife including wolves and grizzly bears. Trips by canoe, kayak or raft last between seven and 14 days, with white-water thrill-seekers also catered for in the form of grade-four rapids.
Diving with hammerhead sharks, Costa Rica - Picture: David Biesack
August – diving with hammerhead sharks, Costa Rica
Although cage diving with great whites in South Africa is well-known, taking a dip with hammerheads in Central America is less so. But off the isolated Cocos Island, these bizarre-looking creatures gather in vast numbers to offer some of the best shark diving in the world, with even the odd whale shark stopping by. Multi-day trips can be taken from San Jose.
September – skydiving over Everest
Skydiving is far from original, and trekking to Everest is hardly ground-breaking either, but put the two together and you have a truly unique experience. Jumps start from just shy of 9,000m – around 150m above the summit – and those taking the plunge have to use supplementary oxygen and special suits to combat the altitude and cold. Programmes last up to four days and jumps land on the slopes of the mountain itself.
October – hand-gliding in Australia
The meteorological phenomenon known as the Morning Glory clouds appear each dawn over the Gulf of Carpenteria in September and offer some of the best hand-gliding on the planet. These tubular formations can stretch for up to 1,000km and push huge uplifts ahead of them, carrying gliders as far as 700km and for up to six hours.
Morning Glory clouds, Australia - Picture: Robin Hutton
November – fly a Russian Mig-25 fighter jet
All right, all right, this is almost as unfeasible as flying to the moon, but who could honestly say they wouldn’t love to do it? A few thousand US dollars will get you 30 minutes in the air, reaching an altitude of over 25,000m and speeds of 3,000kph – twice the speed of sound. You might end up vomiting all over the cockpit, but it would be worth it.
December – kloofing in South Africa
What on earth is kloofing? Good question. It is, in fact, canyoning – and in South Africa, there’s no better place than the menacingly named Suicide Gorge. It can be found on the Western Cape, which is the country’s kloofing heartland, and involves walking, scrambling, swimming, abseiling and even jumping from as high as 15m along an exhilarating 18km route.
Buy Lonely Planet’s A Year of Adventures here
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