Journeys, &c

notes and images

Tag: 5000+

The Manaslu Circuit Trek with a Ten Year Old – Crossing the Larke Pass

19 October 2025 /
Larke La Pass – 5,106m/16,752ft

This ten year old has the Himalaya bug. She also has the determination of mountain goat. The Larke Pass is the highest point of the 165km Manaslu Circuit trek and it’s a big day for an adult, let alone a kid. Up at 3:15am, out at 4:30am, climb from 4,460 meters up to over 5,100 meters, then a huge steep descent way down to 3,700 meters about 14 hours later. She did all that in non-stop rain and snow, after throwing up a dodgy hot chocolate. And by the end, she was bouncing down the trail bursting with enthusiasm for future Himalayan escapades.

Continue reading

Climbing Huayna Potosi in Bolivia

28 February 2018 /

IMG_4590_1200

↑ Glacier Yoga, 5,600 m above sea level

Edmund Hillary once said “Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it”. That very much sums up our approach to Huayna Potosi, a popular peak just north of La Paz.

Sir Ed, a remarkably likeable guy, it seems, also said: “You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated.” This is certainly true of Huayna Potosi, known by some as the “easiest six-thousander in the world”. We’d even heard one woman, blissful in her ignorance, tell us Potosi was easy because “there are no clouds above 4,000”.

But as we battled a fairly convincing snowstorm before dawn at 5,750 meters – just a shade above the mythical “zone of no clouds” – we thought that perhaps Potosi wasn’t as easy as the “been-there-done-that” guys on the backpacker trail liked to make out.

Continue reading

© 2026 Journeys, &c

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑