Matt Godbold looks out from our camp on the West Rib of Mount McKinley.
Tengboche Monastery, the spiritual capital of Tibetan Buddhism in Nepal, watched over by the majestic peak of Ama Dablam.
Mount Everest (at left), Lhotse (middle) and Nuptse (right) bask in the evening glow, as seen from our camp on Pumori in 1988. Images like this inspired me to take on the 8000ers.
Watchful eyes oversee distribution of meat rations in the porters’ butcher shop at Paiju campsite, en route to K2 in Pakistan.
Reinmar Joswig, Daniel Bidner and Rafael Jensen emerge from the ‘bottleneck’ beneath the monstrous ice serac on K2 on summit day.
K2, generally described as the hardest mountain on earth. It was the first 8000er that I successfully summited.
Peter Mezger at the end of the icy traverse below the ‘endless couloir’ on K2 summit day. Both Peter and Reinmar fell from this point later that night. Broad Peak and the Gasherbrum Range are behind.
On the top of K2, my first 8000 metre summit, with Anatoli Bukreev in red.
Triumph turned quickly to tragedy with the loss of two of our team on K2. Our Liaison Officer, Captain Rashid, made these memorial plaques out of dinner plates.
En route to Broad Peak with the Swedes in 1994 on the ‘suicide bus’.Our driver smoked hashish constantly and drove at breakneck speed, despite the huge load on the roof.
Rick Allen and Voytek Kurtyka climb unroped on the huge face leading up to the Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat in 1995.
Brian Laursen digging out a crushed tent on Mount Dhaluagiri. (Photo courtesy of Zac Zaharias)
Major Zac (centre) wins gold from Matt Rogerson (at left) and me, in the Mr Puniverse competition, after our successful first Australian ascent of Dhaulagiri.
Broad Peak. Rick and I attempted the right hand skyline ridge. I subsequently soloed the face leading up to the col and bivouacked, on descent, at the left end of the horizontal ridge at centre top. The summit is at the right end.
The road block en route to Skardu. which threatened to stop my Broad Peak expedition in 1997. Shortly after this shot was taken, an army convoy passed through and we seized the opportunity to run the blockade.
Rick Allen, climbing unroped during our attempt on the unclimbed south ridge of Broad Peak in 1997.
Self portrait on the summit of Broad Peak after my solo ascent. Within hours of taking this shot I would endure my first bivouac, at 8000 metres, without equipment.
A long line of porters carries our expedition equipment up the Baltoro Glacier to Gasherbrum Base Camp in 1999.
My first summit of Mount Everest on 24 May 2000 with one of my clients, Paul Giorgio (in blue). (Photo courtesy of Christine Boskoff)
Trajce Aleksov (Alex) reducing our excess baggage before returning home from Mount Manaslu in 2002.
Sherpas throw rice into the air as an offering to the gods during a Puja ceremony at Everest base camp. The colourful Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags are an important part of the ritual.
Dragging the mortally injured Christian Kuntner to Camp 2 on Annapurna, in a make-shift sled with Silvio Mondinelli (centre) and Brendan Cusack (at left).
Colourfully dressed female porters carrying full loads towards Kanchenjunga.
Lucky to be alive after descending alone from Kanchenjunga’s summit in a wild storm.
Forcing a route up the huge, unstable ice cliff at the top of Annapurna’s German Rib. This was the technical crux of the ascent and one of the most dangerous parts of the climb.
Tiptoeing up the perilous wind slab of Annapurna’s vast summit slopes.
One side of the mountaineers’ memorial at Annapurna base camp. Annapurna had claimed more than sixty lives by the time I climbed it.
Dawa holds the rope to Neil who is 10 metres down a crevasse on Shishapangma. The dark patch ahead of Dawa is the hole Neil made when he broke through.
Bivouacking with Neil (in yellow) on descent from Shishapangma’s summit in 2009. We spent the night in minus 25 to minus 30 degrees Celsius, praying that the forecast blizzard would hold off.
