First published in The Scottish Mountaineer magazine in October 2003 ***** ‘That was blatant exhibitionism!’ scolded Ali. She was right of course. We were driving back through Rothiemurchus forest, retelling our heroic deeds and glorying in the evening sunlight through the trees. After all we had just climbed Hellfire Corner and needed to get our story straight before returning to the bunkhouse. ‘It was definitely VS' we agreed ‘A good traditional Scottish VS’ moreover!“The broad open snowfield of Coire Raibeirt...

As we were tucking into our dinner last night we were rudely interrupted by an extraordinarily loud crash. It scared the life out of Eda who immediately leapt into Jamil’s arms, thus confirming a point of gossip that Andy and I had been debating for some days. We continued munching our steamed fish for a few more moments before Andy voiced what I had been thinking. ‘That sounded like it came from the region of our hammocks’. Having managed to let go of Eda, Jamil rushed off to investigate and returned slightly animated...

In front of me the river is making it’s way over a small waterfall and behind me I can hear the girls carrying on in the kitchen as they prepare lunch. I am sitting next to a 1:50,000 scale relief model of the Maliau Basin Conservation area which is to be my home environment for the next three months. Home itself is an accretion of zinc roofed shelters that meander across folds in the ground between leggy rainforest trees. As a white man and therefore head and shoulders taller than most Malaysians, I have to continually watch...

My meeting with Prof Ho is documented at Arkitrek under the post of his name. Another fascinating thing for me about Prof. Ho is that he was a member of the 1964 Mt Kinabalu East Expedition during which Prof. E J H Corner of Cambridge University made the third ascent of Kotal's Route to the Eastern Plateau of Mt Kinabalu. This is the route that I followed in complete ignorance with friends Emma and Matt in June 2004. The account of that ascent follows. * * * * * The rotting branch takes on a fresh intensity as I decide to trust...