Kev Reynolds, this guide's contributing editor, has written a series of trekkers' guides to Nepal as well as many books on the Alps and several guides on walking in southern England. The contributors to this guide: Steve Berry, Bob Gibbons, Stephen Goodwin, Bart Jordans, Siân Pritchard-Jones, Steve Razzetti and Chris Townsend, are all passionate about the Himalaya and have extensive experience of the region's heights.
A lifelong passion for the countryside in general, and mountains in particular, drove Kev's desire to share his sense of wonder and delight in the natural world through his writing, guiding, photography and lecturing. Spending several months every year in various high-mountain regions researching guidebooks made him The Man with the World's Best Job. Kev enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Cicerone from the 1970s, producing 50 books, including guides to five major trekking regions of Nepal and to numerous routes in the European Alps and Pyrenees, as well as walking guides for Kent, Sussex and the Cotswolds. 'A Walk in the Clouds' is a collection of autobiographical short stories recording 50 years of mountain travel and adventures. He was also the contributing editor of the collaborative guide 'Trekking in the Himalaya' and Cicerone's celebratory anniversary compilation 'Fifty Years of Adventure'. A frequent contributor to outdoor magazines, Kev also wrote and illustrated brochures for national tourist authorities and travel companies. When not away in the mountains, Kev lived with his wife in a small cottage among what he called 'the Kentish Alps', with unrestricted walking country on the doorstep. But he also travelled throughout Britain during the winter months to share his love of the places he wrote about through a series of lectures. Sadly, Kev passed away in 2021. He will be remembered fondly by all who knew him and by many more he inspired through his writing and talks.
Chris Townsend is an outdoor writer and photographer whose 25 books include Scotland in Cicerone's World Mountain ranges series; the award-winning The Backpacker's Handbook ; Rattlesnakes and Bald Eagles , the story of his hike along the 2600-mile Pacific Crest Trail; The Munros and Tops , an account of his continuous round of all the 3000ft summits in Scotland – the first time this walk has been done; and Along the Divide , the story of his walk along the Scottish watershed. A passionate long-distance walker, Chris's other epic walks include the 3100-mile Continental Divide Trail, the 1200-mile Pacific Northwest Trail, the 800-mile Arizona Trail, 1600 miles along the whole length of the Canadian Rockies (another first), 1000 miles south–north through the Yukon Territory and 1300 miles south-north through Norway and Sweden. He has also led ski tours in Norway, Spitsbergen, Greenland, Lapland and other areas, as well as treks in Nepal. Chris is involved with several outdoor and conservation organisations and served as President of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland and as a Trustee of the John Muir Trust. He writes on outdoor subjects every month for TGO magazine, and lives in Strathspey in the Cairngorms National Park.
Siân Pritchard-Jones and Bob Gibbons met in 1983, on a trek from Kashmir to Ladakh. By then Bob had already driven an ancient Land Rover from England to Kathmandu (in 1974), and overland trucks across Asia, Africa and South America. He had also lived in Kathmandu for two years, employed as a trekking company manager. Before they met, Siân worked in computer programming and systems analysis, but was drawn to the Himalaya en route from working in New Zealand. Since they met they have been leading and organising treks in the Alps, Nepal and the Sahara, as well as driving a bus overland to Nepal. Journeys by a less ancient Land Rover from England to South Africa provided the basis for several editions of the Bradt guide Africa Overland. For the sixth edition published in April 2014, they visited the fantastic boiling lava lake of Erta Ale in the Danakil desert of Ethiopia, and Somaliland. They were lucky finally to get visas to visit Eritrea, Angola and Congo for their most recent African research trips in 2016. In Kathmandu they previously worked with Pilgrims Publishing, producing cultural guides – Kathmandu: Valley of the Green-Eyed Yellow Idol and Ladakh: Land of Magical Monasteries – and a historical look at the Guge Kingdom, Kailash: Land of the Tantric Mountain. In 2007 they wrote the Cicerone guide to Mount Kailash and Western Tibet, as well updating the Grand Canyon guide. During 2011 they returned to Tibet, this time driving the same old Land Rover back from Kathmandu to the UK overland via Lhasa, through China, Kazakhstan, Russia and Western Europe. Their Annapurna trekking guide was published by Cicerone in January 2013; the second edition is due later in 2017. For Himalayan Map House they are writing a new series of trekking guidebooks: Himalayan Travel Guides. Titles so far published include Manaslu & Tsum Valley (2nd edition); Upper & Lower Dolpo; Ganesh Himal & Tamang Heritage Trail; Everest; Langtang, Gosainkund & Helambu; Rolwaling & Gauri Shankar; Trekking around the Nepal Himalaya and Mustang. They have also recently published their autobiography, In Search of the Green-Eyed Yellow Idol, in colour, black & white and Kindle formats, and a Pictorial Guide to the Horn of Africa.
Stephen Goodwin is a freelance journalist and editor of the prestigious Alpine Journal , the oldest mountaineering journal in the world. In 1999, after 25 years as a staff journalist on The Times and then The Independent, he exchanged the turbulence of Fleet Street and politics in 'the Westminster village' for the subtler currents of Cumbria's Eden Valley. When not tempted from his desk by the crags of the nearby Lake District, most days are devoted to the AJ, which he has edited since 2004, and writing about mountain matters, the environment and just a dash of politics. A climber and ski-mountaineer, he got his first taste of the Himalaya on a dream assignment in 1998, and reached the south summit of Everest, filing an award-winning diary to The Independent. Since then he has returned to the Himalaya most years as well as climbing, trekking and ski-touring in the Alps, Andes and Turkey. Happy sharing his enthusiasms with others, he enjoys leading trekking and climbing groups for Mountain Kingdoms. In 2009 he published a guide to Day Walks in the Lake District (Vertebrate), and has recently edited books by climbers Ron Fawcett and Simon Yates.
Steve Berry was born in Shillong, India just south of the Bhutanese border, and has returned to the Himalaya many times as a leader of remote treks and expeditions. These include the first British ascent of Nun (7135m) in Kashmir, and attempts on the sixth-highest mountain in the world, Cho Oyu (8210m) in Nepal, and also Gangkar Punsum in Bhutan – at 7550m this is still the world's highest unclimbed peak. He is the owner of Mountain Kingdoms Ltd (formerly Himalayan Kingdoms), a company offering walking holidays worldwide, and is a co-founder of Wilderness Lectures in Bristol. He has previously written two books – Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon , published by Crowood Press, and Straight Up , published by Himalayan Kingdoms in 2012. The former tells the story of the first, and only, British expedition to attempt Bhutan's highest mountain. The latter is a collection of stories from some of Steve's expeditions.
Steve Razetti has wide-ranging experience of the Himalayan regions and a special affinity with the mountains of Pakistan. In May 1986 he joined Simon Yates and several other friends on a mountaineering expedition to the Hushe valley in the Karakoram. The following year he led his first trekking group in the area, taking a group to K2 base camp and Concordia with the legendary mountaineer Doug Scott. The people and mountains of Pakistan's wild northern areas made such an impression on him that he spent the next 16 summers there, only taking a break when the tragic events of 9/11 temporarily ended mountain travel in the country. He played an instrumental role in developing new and exciting routes for commercial trekking in Pakistan, exploring and leading reconnaissance trips throughout the Karakoram and Hindu Kush. His articles have appeared widely in the geographical and mountaineering press, and his photographic images are distributed by agencies such as Getty Images and the RGS Picture Library. He lives with his family in Cumbria.
Originally from the Netherlands, Bart Jordans has been guiding and exploring treks and (trekking) peaks in the Himalayas, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, European Alps, Kilimanjaro, Simien Mountains of Ethiopia, Moroccan Atlas Mountains and Damavand in Iran since 1984. Most of his guiding experience is in Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan. He has been guiding in Pakistan since 1989. Originally from the Netherlands, he lived in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan for over four years with his wife and two children. He also lived in Vietnam for two years, and is now settled in Copenhagen. He caught the bug for mountain activities early in life when his parents took the family to either the Swiss or Austrian Alps every year, and with his brother he later trekked and climbed throughout the Alpine range. From Amsterdam he regularly visited Belgium and the UK for rock climbing. As well as Bart's acclaimed Bhutan: A Trekker's Guide (a finalist at Canada's Banff Mountain Book Festival 2006), he has written a guidebook to Pakistan's Karakoram range and contributed the section on the Kangshung Face trek for Kev Reynolds' trekking guide to Everest and four chapters to Trekking in the Himalaya , edited by Kev Reynolds. Bart is a freelance trekking guide for several well-known companies. When not in the mountains he works in the outdoor gear business and writes articles on the mountains of Bhutan, for which he is a noted expert. For any enquiries and comments contact Bart at info@bhutantreks.com .
