Imagine a life filled with exploration, mountain treks and dizzying heights and you may be able to picture what it’s like to be internationally acclaimed mountaineer, writer and broadcaster Stephen Venables.
Over his career, Stephen has published 12 books. His first, Painted Mountains, won the 1986 Boardman Tasker Prize for mountain literature, while others have won the Grand Prize at the Banff International Mountain Festival and the King Albert Award. His ninth book, Ollie, published in 2006, saw a departure from adventure and exploration. It was a touching tribute to his elder son, who had autism, and who died from a brain tumour aged 12.
“I always wanted to write, and, in 1985, I put a proposal in to Hodder and Stoughton and I had a contract to do my first book. They have mainly been about mountain travel but, for example, the South Georgia book was a sort of portrait of this magical island, the history of the wildlife, and what makes it special. In Ollie, the mountains were there as a sort of background, but it was a very different kind of book, and I was pleased to do that, because it was something very close to my heart. I really felt I wanted to tell Ollie’s story. We really thought he was an amazing child every parent does think that about their child but we thought he was quite special. I also wanted to show people the experience of having a child with a disability, how children are treated in hospitals, and about cancers and autism. We’d been on an extraordinary journey and I wanted to write about it.”
For many years, Stephen and his wife, Rosie, battled for a better understanding of his support and education needs and also fought for more research into possible links between autism and the MMR vaccine. Although Stephen is still interested in hearing about new research, he says he and Rosie’s time for campaigning is now past. “My wife feels strongly that autism occupied our lives for quite some time. She is now an art student and studying ceramics and very busy with that.”It’s always nice when I get letters from people who have a child with autism, or other similar difficulties. They come out of the blue every once in a while a letter or an email and it’s always thrilling, because it’s nice to know that someone has read the book.”
Now nearing his late 50s, Stephen says he isn’t thinking about giving up his adventures anytime soon, although it is becoming more important for him to listen to his body. He is leading treks to the Himalayas in March and April and also going back to South Georgia in October.
“I haven’t been to altitude for a long time. If I was to attempt to scale 29,000 feet now without oxygen, I’m not sure I’d be able to do it, as I was in my 30s when I did Everest. You get slower, no doubt about it, but the things I have been doing recently, I’ve felt fine. The other problem with climbing is you become slightly less flexible and, the less the mechanically efficient your body is, things tend to become harder. During the 70s, 80s and 90s, I spent a lot of time in the Himalayas and it’s quite committing, and you spend a lot of time at altitude and extremes of temperatures.”In a way, you miss out on some of the more enjoyable things, like climbing in Scotland or in the Alps and, in recent years, I have been doing more of that. It’s been nice to come back to it.”Stephen Venables: In the Steps of Shackleton tour is at the Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy, on Thursday, February 3. For more information visit www.stephenvenables.com.Based in Bath for the last 20 years, most of Stephen’s expeditions have taken him to the mountains of Central Asia, but he has also climbed in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Southern Africa and East Africa. He is best known for an expedition to Everest in 1988 when his team pioneered a new route up the biggest face of the world’s highest mountain, but also chose to make their attempt without using supplementary oxygen. Stephen reached the summit alone after his three companions were forced to stop.
“It was the only time I climbed Everest, but I have been to the Himalayas many times. It was such a fantastic expedition, I don’t think another one would live up to it, really. Normally people would carry one or two oxygen cylinders in a rucksack with a connector valve and a mask. It sounds horrendous to me, because you’d be going up the mountain plugged into this mask.”
Stephen was in a team of four, accompanied by one American and two Canadians. On the final day to the summit, there were three of them, and two didn’t quite make it to the top. Trekking at thousands of feet can lead to severe illness, as there are fewer oxygen molecules in each breath of air at higher altitudes. At the summit of Everest, which is 29,000 feet above sea level, the available oxygen is only one-third of that at sea level.
“I never felt as if I had made a mistake, but there were many times when I had huge doubts about whether I was up to it and there was only one way to find out,” Stephen said. “I’ve done expeditions that have involved harder technical climbing but that climb was the hardest thing I have done, physically and mentally. I don’t know how many people have climbed Everest now 4000, maybe. When I climbed it in 1988, I was the 200th person and, of those, 20 people had reached the top without oxygen, and 24 had not come back alive so that was fairly sobering. One rewarding things is you reach a stage where you think, my body can’t go any further and, 10 hours later, it’s still carrying on, and 15, then three days later.”
Stephen has sustained all sorts of injuries and disfigurement as a result of his passion for adventure, including a smashed knee, crushed heel, cracked ankle, dislocated shoulder, and missing toes due to the effects of frostbite. He admits he isn’t very good about training, in fact, he finds it pretty boring, and is lazy about taking exercise unless he is doing something enjoyable.
“I am pretty unscientific about it, and there are climbers who are stronger and fitter and work at it harder than me. The best training, really, is just to do a lot of mountaineering because at least you are familiar with the sensations and familiar with the situations you are in. You learn important things that keep you alive, like ensuring your crampons are on properly, your ice axe is sharp, and putting on your sun goggles, so you don’t get snow blind. He is also careful to ensure anyone who signs up to accompany him on a trip is up to standard, usually holding a training weekend in the Alps. On a recent trip, there was one chap, recently retired, who was great company, but, before we left, I was slightly concerned about his fitness. He lives in South London and I suggested he did what polar explorers do to keep fit and drag a tractor tyre around. He became quite a familiar sight in London dragging these tyres round Clapham Common. As a result, he got very fit and was absolutely fine on the trip!”
Stephen has been a climber and adventurer since his youth, “I just never had a proper job, that’s the trouble,” he laughed. “Since I was in my early 20s I have always climbed and gone on expeditions, and that has become my way of life. I still spend a lot of my time at home, but I like to go away on at least one trip per year.”
Stephen read English at Oxford University and took jobs as a teacher and carpenter to fund trips to some of the world’s most remote and often unclimbed peaks. That has been his life for around 40 years and Stephen is now one of the most well-known and respected mountaineers of his generation, with a reputation for pioneering new routes up little-known mountains all over the world. Aside from his adventures, Stephen makes his living from writing, broadcasting and also leading trips and expeditions. He has written for all the London broadsheet newspapers, covering exploration and adventure, as well as other subjects, and is also an internationally renowned speaker, appearing at theatres, schools and universities across the world. He is in Scotland this week with a touring show that retells the story of explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s escape from Antarctica, with stunning photos and film footage illustrating his treacherous journey over the mountains.
“Shackleton’s expedition is one of the great epics of exploration a tale of escape and survival more miraculous than any fiction,” Stephen said.
In the last 10 years, Stephen has twice repeated Shackleton’s famous crossing of South Georgia. The first time was in 2000 with Conrad Anker and world famous mountaineer Reinhold Messner, during the making of the IMAX movie Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure. He returned in 2008, to guide a team on their crossing. In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton set out on an expedition to cross Antarctica via the South Pole but disaster struck early in 1915 when his ship, Endurance, was crushed by the Antarctic ice. Leaving his crew marooned on Elephant Island, Shackleton set out with five companions in a tiny lifeboat in search of help.
After a 16-day, 800-mile, voyage across the Southern Ocean they landed on South Georgia’s deserted south coast. There, Shackleton continued on foot with two of his men, crossing 30 miles of unknown, unmapped glacial mountains, with no mountaineering equipment. They finally reached the whaling station of Stromness on the north coast, where they were able to summon a successful rescue for their remaining 22 companions.
“My talk retells a story, with which some people are familiar, using archive material and weaving into that my own experiences nearly 100 years later. We did a tour last spring of about 20 theatres and it went very well, so we thought we could do another one. We didn’t have any Scottish theatres in the last tour, so it was a chance to come up this time.”
Stephen describes the Antarctic Island of South Georgia as a special and unspoilt place. “I wrote a book called Island at the Edge of the World some time ago after my first trip there in 1989, and this has now been reissued. It’s a wonderful wilderness and the thing about South Georgia is you can’t fly there, in fact, the one time I met Margaret Thatcher, she asked if I flew there and I told her there was no airstrip I thought she’d have known that because she’d just led a war at the Falkland Islands! You can only get there by boat, it’s very remote, you really do feel you are in the middle of nowhere and that’s very appealing.”
Based in Bath for the last 20 years, most of Stephen’s expeditions have taken him to the mountains of Central Asia, but he has also climbed in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Southern Africa and East Africa. He is best known for an expedition to Everest in 1988 when his team pioneered a new route up the biggest face of the world’s highest mountain, but also chose to make their attempt without using supplementary oxygen. Stephen reached the summit alone after his three companions were forced to stop.
“It was the only time I climbed Everest, but I have been to the Himalayas many times. It was such a fantastic expedition, I don’t think another one would live up to it, really. Normally people would carry one or two oxygen cylinders in a rucksack with a connector valve and a mask. It sounds horrendous to me, because you’d be going up the mountain plugged into this mask.”
Stephen was in a team of four, accompanied by one American and two Canadians. On the final day to the summit, there were three of them, and two didn’t quite make it to the top. Trekking at thousands of feet can lead to severe illness, as there are fewer oxygen molecules in each breath of air at higher altitudes. At the summit of Everest, which is 29,000 feet above sea level, the available oxygen is only one-third of that at sea level.
“I never felt as if I had made a mistake, but there were many times when I had huge doubts about whether I was up to it and there was only one way to find out,” Stephen said. “I’ve done expeditions that have involved harder technical climbing but that climb was the hardest thing I have done, physically and mentally. I don’t know how many people have climbed Everest now 4000, maybe. When I climbed it in 1988, I was the 200th person and, of those, 20 people had reached the top without oxygen, and 24 had not come back alive so that was fairly sobering. One rewarding things is you reach a stage where you think, my body can’t go any further and, 10 hours later, it’s still carrying on, and 15, then three days later.”
Stephen has sustained all sorts of injuries and disfigurement as a result of his passion for adventure, including a smashed knee, crushed heel, cracked ankle, dislocated shoulder, and missing toes due to the effects of frostbite. He admits he isn’t very good about training, in fact, he finds it pretty boring, and is lazy about taking exercise unless he is doing something enjoyable.
“I am pretty unscientific about it, and there are climbers who are stronger and fitter and work at it harder than me. The best training, really, is just to do a lot of mountaineering because at least you are familiar with the sensations and familiar with the situations you are in. You learn important things that keep you alive, like ensuring your crampons are on properly, your ice axe is sharp, and putting on your sun goggles, so you don’t get snow blind. He is also careful to ensure anyone who signs up to accompany him on a trip is up to standard, usually holding a training weekend in the Alps. On a recent trip, there was one chap, recently retired, who was great company, but, before we left, I was slightly concerned about his fitness. He lives in South London and I suggested he did what polar explorers do to keep fit and drag a tractor tyre around. He became quite a familiar sight in London dragging these tyres round Clapham Common. As a result, he got very fit and was absolutely fine on the trip!”
Stephen has been a climber and adventurer since his youth, “I just never had a proper job, that’s the trouble,” he laughed. “Since I was in my early 20s I have always climbed and gone on expeditions, and that has become my way of life. I still spend a lot of my time at home, but I like to go away on at least one trip per year.”
Stephen read English at Oxford University and took jobs as a teacher and carpenter to fund trips to some of the world’s most remote and often unclimbed peaks. That has been his life for around 40 years and Stephen is now one of the most well-known and respected mountaineers of his generation, with a reputation for pioneering new routes up little-known mountains all over the world. Aside from his adventures, Stephen makes his living from writing, broadcasting and also leading trips and expeditions. He has written for all the London broadsheet newspapers, covering exploration and adventure, as well as other subjects, and is also an internationally renowned speaker, appearing at theatres, schools and universities across the world. He is in Scotland this week with a touring show that retells the story of explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s escape from Antarctica, with stunning photos and film footage illustrating his treacherous journey over the mountains.
“Shackleton’s expedition is one of the great epics of exploration a tale of escape and survival more miraculous than any fiction,” Stephen said.
In the last 10 years, Stephen has twice repeated Shackleton’s famous crossing of South Georgia. The first time was in 2000 with Conrad Anker and world famous mountaineer Reinhold Messner, during the making of the IMAX movie Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure. He returned in 2008, to guide a team on their crossing. In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton set out on an expedition to cross Antarctica via the South Pole but disaster struck early in 1915 when his ship, Endurance, was crushed by the Antarctic ice. Leaving his crew marooned on Elephant Island, Shackleton set out with five companions in a tiny lifeboat in search of help.
After a 16-day, 800-mile, voyage across the Southern Ocean they landed on South Georgia’s deserted south coast. There, Shackleton continued on foot with two of his men, crossing 30 miles of unknown, unmapped glacial mountains, with no mountaineering equipment. They finally reached the whaling station of Stromness on the north coast, where they were able to summon a successful rescue for their remaining 22 companions.
“My talk retells a story, with which some people are familiar, using archive material and weaving into that my own experiences nearly 100 years later. We did a tour last spring of about 20 theatres and it went very well, so we thought we could do another one. We didn’t have any Scottish theatres in the last tour, so it was a chance to come up this time.”
Stephen describes the Antarctic Island of South Georgia as a special and unspoilt place. “I wrote a book called Island at the Edge of the World some time ago after my first trip there in 1989, and this has now been reissued. It’s a wonderful wilderness and the thing about South Georgia is you can’t fly there, in fact, the one time I met Margaret Thatcher, she asked if I flew there and I told her there was no airstrip I thought she’d have known that because she’d just led a war at the Falkland Islands! You can only get there by boat, it’s very remote, you really do feel you are in the middle of nowhere and that’s very appealing.”