How to jam. I've progressed from City and Guilds and now hold a very lowly Ordinary Degree in jamming. Martin on Rab Chris Bonington may have been responsible for some of the more exploratory ascents in the Himalayas, but he ended up climbing Everest himself in fairly mundane fashion.

For more than two decades, Boysen was also one of Britain’s leading mountaineers. A crucial member of Sir Chris Bonington’s team that climbed the South Face of Annapurna in 1970, Boysen was also part of Bonington’s second summit team on the South-West face of Everest. In 1976 he made the first ascent of Trango Tower with Joe Brown.It’s been 45 years since Dougal Haston and Doug Scott stood as the first Brits on the summit of Everest, and the first ever team by the south-west face. Has Martin ever cheated on you and climbed a route you really wanted to do together with someone else?

They left the summit at 1.40. It had been a straightforward ascent, and although it was windy and grey, they had plenty of time. There seemed no reason why they shouldn’t be able to return to camp without incident. Gillman, Peter, ed. (1993). "Everest – the Thirteen Routes". Everest: the best writing and pictures from seventy years of human endeavour. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0316904899.The same day you were questing about on Anglesey, the Beatles swooped the top 5 spots in the American charts. Were you aware the Sixties were swinging around you? In 1976 they were members of a joint British-Nepalese army expedition led by Lt Col Tony Streather (who had reached the summit of Kangchenjunga in 1955 the day after Joe Brown and George Band made the first ascent). As was the practice at the time, it was another siege-style expedition. Like Scott and Haston the previous year, Stokes and Lane proved to be the expedition’s strongest climbers and were nominated to form the first summit party.