Peter Boardman expedition to Afghanistan

Adam Curtis, a documentary maker, is researching the history of the west's relationship to Afghanistan over the past 200 years. His notes and observations can be seen on the Adam Curtis blog and it makes for fascinating reading and viewing.

In Part One - 1971, he describes how, in that year, the BBC sent a film crew to Kabul to recreate the first great military disaster of the British Empire - the retreat from the city in 1841. As an aside, Curtis mentions that:

"As the BBC were filming a group of students from Nottingham University drove past. They were a group of mountaineers who were on their way to their first expedition outside Europe. They were going to climb a peak in the Hindu Kush called Koh-i-Khaaik. Their leader was called Peter Boardman. He would become one of the world's most famous climbers, but this particular trip was going to go terribly wrong. In 1977 Boardman recorded a description to camera of what happened both literally, and inside his own mind during his terrifying ordeal."

The film can be found at the bottom of Part one. It may only last 13 minutes but Boardman's story of the expedition is a powerful bit of television. He vividly describes just what it is like to be stuck on a high-altitude climb and realising that you're at the point of no return - reversing is out of the question so the only hope of getting off the mountain alive is to carry on climbing to the top.

Mountaineering in Afghanistan

Afghanistan might not be everyone's idea of a holiday destination but adventurous climbers are starting to return to the country's mountainous Hindu Kush area. In the Winter issue of Summit, David James writes how it's packed full of unclimbed peaks, near perfect weather and is an ideal introduction to high altitude mountaineering. As for danger - as in the Taliban, rather than avalanches and rock-falls - he writes:

"the remote and and mountainous Wakhan corridor has remained entirely peaceful ...you're more likely to see a yeti in the Wakhan than the Taliban."

James, a former news cameraman and ex-soldier, has set up Mountain Unity International, a company that aims to promote the mountaineering and trekking industries in the region. Since 2003 a small group of Afghans have undergone training as mountain guides while a series of guesthouses and campsites have been established. All profits and assets are locked into supporting the Afghan people.

From the 1960s up until the Soviet invasion of 1979, the country was an extremely popular destination for European climbers. However, no mention of the region can be made without reference to Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, his memoir of an attempt to climb a virgin peak. In a review for the Observer, John Morris commented that the tale would "horrify conventional mountain explorers and even less ambitious travellers with some sense of organisation", while concluding that it was the funniest travel book he had ever read (October 26 1958).