Travel Journals
9 primary works • 10 total works
Book 2
El Autana is a sandstone tepuy or butte about 400 miles south of Caracas in the Amazon Territory of Venezuela. We climbed the left hand ridge in the photograph in three days in 1974. A cathedral sized cave pierces the mountain from side to side, so that light shines through about 400 ft from the top. Like all good jungle mountains, this too has its indian legend. At dusk, when the sun shines through the cave that pierces the mountain from one side to side, the Piaroa indians call the cave the `Eye of the Gods'. Stephen Platt, David Nott, Wilmer Perez la Riva and Carlos Reyes climbed the North Ridge in its entirety and then descended to the caves were we spent three nights, exploring the galleries and traversing around the mountain along the horizontal fault line at the height of the cave. On the third day we completed the ridge to the summit. Night caught us abseiling down the last overhanging 300ft wall and we stumbled back to base camp by the meagre light of our only torch.
Book 4
We went to Venezuela in 1981 after an expedition we had been invited to join fell through. So we turned our attention to Ilu Tepuy, an unclimbed sandstone butte in the Gran Sabana north west of Roraima. At first, we didn't think of the mountain in a proprietary way. We were looking for a mountain, any mountain really, that had not been climbed and Ilu Tepuy seemed to offer the best chance since there was a `path' to its base. This didn't mean there was a path in our sense of the word necessarily, but that someone has been there and, knowing this, people would be prepared to go there again without too much difficulty. It ought not to be necessary to justify why we went to climb in Venezuela but for the fact that so many people asked us. Two reasons spring to mind. The first is to confront a challenge, which explains why one endures hardship and danger. The second is to experience those rare days of magical ecstasy that leave an insatiable thirst and desire for more.
Book 5
We went to Guatemala to visit David, a friend I hadn't seen for more than twenty-five years since I lived in Venezuela. We stay with his delightful family, a house full of delightful women. We go to Chichicastenango on market day and witness the strangely pagan firework procession from the church; we take a cruise around Lake Atitlan and stop off in the villages around its shores. We fly to Tikal, climb pyramids and hear about the end of the world. And David takes us up the active volcano of Pacaya where we brave poisonous sulphur clouds and risk being bombarded with tephra bombs that David says land with a splat like red-hot cow pats. But the most amazing part of our trip, something we hadn't bargained for, is that David reveals he was for over thirty years `Our man in Central America'.
Book 6
The city of Van on the Silk Road in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It was hit by an earthquake on Sunday 23 October 2011. People were killed and many more made homeless. I went there a year later to see how well the city is recovering. Scharlie, my wife, came for the first week in Izmir where we stayed with Bahar, a former PhD student of mine, and her parents. With the help of a guide, Harun, I visited Van and Ergis, which had suffered severe damage, and interviewed local Governors, urban planners, engineers, geologists, business people and residents about what is being done to boost the economy, deal with social problems and to plan the future of the region and the city. I also made contact with engineers and planners in Izmir, Ankara and Istanbul to better understand how Turkey manages recovery. On my weekend off I hired a car and drove north up the Armenia border passed Mount Ararat as far the Kars, featured in Orhan Pamuk's book `Snow' and the ruined medieval capital of Armenia, Ani.
Book 8
I visited Iran twice: in 2014 and 2015. On the first visit I went to Manjil and Bam, two cities devastated by earthquakes in 1990 and 2003. I wanted to see how they were recovering. It was difficult to get a visa and I had to go to the Iranian Embassy in Istanbul and then to a police station in Tehran to get them extended. It is a great privilege to see a country through the intimate daily lives of its people In 2013, on a mission to Japan, I met a young Iranian who invited me to meet her family - the Mahdavians. On both trips I stayed in their home and they looked after me and showed me around. Iran has a long history and many important historic sites. Persia is one of the oldest civilisations in the world dating to 7,000 BC. I visited famous sites - Persepolis, Isfahan, Shiraz, Yadz and Kerman. Iran is mountainous with deserts and lush green countryside. I visited both, climbed mountains, went skiing and paddled in the Caspian Sea.
Book 9
We went to Ecuador to visit my daughter Frances. In Quito we stayed with Ecuadorian friends who introduced us to culinary delights such as calf's foot soup (good for hangovers), cow's udder (like eating Pirelli tyre rubber) and guinea pig (like roast chicken on a spit). We planned to climb volcanos, acclimatising slowly, starting from Loma Lumbisi at 3039 m and building up to Chimborazo at 6,268 m. Although not technically difficult, they weren't easy. There was rock scrambling on Carihaurazo and one had to take care not to trip on the steep snow. Between climbs we relaxed and recovered in the hot thermal springs and rejuventing calm of the spa town of Banos and the jungle pools of Papallacta. The account describes our struggles to cope with altitude sickness and to find foothold on the loose ash slopes. It describes our relations with my german friend Hans from Venezuela, whose slow, measured pace Steve found frustrating but whose rhythm suited Scharlie.
Book 11
I went to Kyrgyzstan to run a scenario planning game in Bishkek with Emergency personnel from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan use remote sensing to map hazards and monitor disaster recovery.
Our host takes us to a night club. It's in a vast concert bunker. We toast each other unmercifully with vodka shots until encouraged onto the dance floor where we dance with a group of attractive young girls they call the `jet-set'.
We went for a walk in the snow covered Tien Shan and walked up the Ala Acha gorge. We wanted to see snow leopard, but all we saw were the inquisitive marmots and circling eagles. Having forgotten my trainers I had only sandals to keep my feet warm.
Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan is a fascinating city, with its tree-lined boulevards, Soviet `brave new world' architecture and a huge statue of Lenin pointing towards a future long gone. Bishkek is a city on the ancient `silk-road' and there is a relaxed human feel to the place.
Our host takes us to a night club. It's in a vast concert bunker. We toast each other unmercifully with vodka shots until encouraged onto the dance floor where we dance with a group of attractive young girls they call the `jet-set'.
We went for a walk in the snow covered Tien Shan and walked up the Ala Acha gorge. We wanted to see snow leopard, but all we saw were the inquisitive marmots and circling eagles. Having forgotten my trainers I had only sandals to keep my feet warm.
Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan is a fascinating city, with its tree-lined boulevards, Soviet `brave new world' architecture and a huge statue of Lenin pointing towards a future long gone. Bishkek is a city on the ancient `silk-road' and there is a relaxed human feel to the place.
Book 12
The Laugavegur is one of the big walks. It is the most famous trek in Iceland and crosses other worldly landscapes formed by recent volcanos. I did it from north to south and it runs over 80km from Landmannalauger via Thorsmork to Skogar on the coast.
The trail is normally open from late June to mid-August. I started on the 15 June, the first day the bus ran to Landmannalaugar. I hadn't booked the huts as I didn't know whether I'd make it. So I took camping gear.
The scenery is sensational and unlike anywhere I'd been before. At this time of the year there is still a lot of snow. I was alone much of the time, having started early in the year. There were three river crossings in flood and I needed to strip and take care.
You pass through vivid rhyolite mountains, climb snow slopes, cross ash deserts, rift canyons and glacial streams. There are wild flowers, sweet birch and the cries of redshank and ptarmigan. I did the trek from Landmannalaugar to Skogar in 4 days including the bus trips at either end
The trail is normally open from late June to mid-August. I started on the 15 June, the first day the bus ran to Landmannalaugar. I hadn't booked the huts as I didn't know whether I'd make it. So I took camping gear.
The scenery is sensational and unlike anywhere I'd been before. At this time of the year there is still a lot of snow. I was alone much of the time, having started early in the year. There were three river crossings in flood and I needed to strip and take care.
You pass through vivid rhyolite mountains, climb snow slopes, cross ash deserts, rift canyons and glacial streams. There are wild flowers, sweet birch and the cries of redshank and ptarmigan. I did the trek from Landmannalaugar to Skogar in 4 days including the bus trips at either end
Book 23
In the summer of 2004 we went climbing with Dimitri in the Valle Garrafano in the Apuane Alps, a limestone area famous for its Carrara marble. Dimitri had been a tenant of ours in Cambridge when he had a sabbatical working in the University Library. We returned the following summer and were whisked off again to the rocky valleys of Italy's far northwest. We climbed in the Valle Maira and Valle Gesso in the Maritime Alps, Then we drove further north to the Valle dell'Orco in the Graian Alps near the Parco Gran Paradiso. The rock was superb and we did some great routes following our 'Pied Piper' Dimitri.
Twelve of us went from the UK, as part of an Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation (EEFIT) mission, to study recovery after the 2011 Tohoku tsunami. This was a major disaster for Japan. For the country most prepared for earthquakes this was a shocking event that will take years and trillions of dollars to repair. Fifteen months after the disaster, when we made our field trip, recovery was already underway. New embankments were being constructed along the coast of the Sendai plain in Miyage Province and debris had been collected into huge sorted piles. But further north, in Iwate Province a debate was raging between the safety conscious who wanted to construct high embankments and those who wanted to maintain their intimate contact with the shore and sea. I went to Kobe and Kyoto to visit engineers in earthquake institutes. I went site seeing and was beguiled by Japanese architecture and landscape.
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