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Stephen Venables

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Stephen Venables (born 1954) is a British mountaineer and writer, currently president of the South Georgia Association and a past President of the Alpine Club, a frequent author about being rescued in the mountains and original author of this Misplaced Pages article on himself.

Mountaineer

In 1988, Venables became the first Briton to ascend the summit of Mount Everest without bottled oxygen. His ascent, as far as the South Col, was by a new route up the Kangshung Face from Tibet, with just three other climbers, Americans Robert Anderson and Ed Webster, and Canadian Paul Teare. All four reached the South Col but Teare decided to descend from here, concerned about incipient altitude sickness. The other three continued up the final section of the normal 1953 route, but Anderson and Webster were forced to turn back at the South Summit. Meanwhile Venables reached the summit alone, at 3.40 pm. Descending late in the day, he decided to bivouac in the open at about 8,600 metres, rather than risk a fall by continuing in the dark. Anderson and Webster spent the night slightly lower in an abandoned Japanese tent. In the morning Anderson and Webster, despite being frostbitten, climbed back up to rescue Venables, who was close to death when they finally were able to reach him with food and water. It took them three days to help him down down the Kangshung Face. Venables suffered some frostbite but Webster actually lost fingertips and toes rescuing Venables.

A decade later Venables was again rescued during the descent in a fall from from Panch Chuli V. Venables has written extensively about his rescues in a long list of books, which he has listed below.

Venables is also the father of the only known child in the UK to be diagnosed with both autism and leukaemia. His son, Ollie (born June 1991), was diagnosed with autism aged two and leukaemia aged four. After several cancer-free years, he developed a brain tumour and died, aged twelve years old, a subject which Venables again wrote a book about in Ollie, published in 2006.

Author

The award for Best Book — Mountain Literature at the 2007 Banff Mountain Book Festival went to Venables for his Higher Than the Eagle Soars: A Path to Everest.

Further reading

  • Venables, Stephen, Painted Mountains: Two Expeditions to Kashmir, Mountaineers Press, 1987, (ISBN 0898861365)
  • Venables, Stephen, Everest, Kangshung Face, Pan, 1991, (ISBN 0330315595)
  • Venables, Stephen, Island at the Edge of the World: South Georgian Odyssey, Hodder and Stoughton, 1991, (ISBN 0340556005)
  • Venables, Stephen, Everest - Alone at the Summit, Odyssey, 1996, (ISBN 0952937506)
  • Venables, Stephen and Fanshawe, Andy, Himalaya Alpine Style: The Most Challenging Routes on the Highest Peaks, Baton Wicks, 1999, (ISBN 1898573395)
  • Venables, Stephen, A Slender Thread: Escaping Disaster in the Himalaya, Arrow, 2001, (ISBN 0099279061)
  • Venables, Stephen, To the Top: The Story of Everest, Walker, 2004, (ISBN 1844287254)
  • Venables, Stephen, Everest - Summit of Achievement Bloomsbury 2003 (ISBN-10:0747562237)
  • Venables, Stephen, Ollie: The True Story of a Brief and Courageous Life, Hutchinson, 2006, (ISBN 009947879X)
  • Venables, Stephen, Voices from the Mountains, Reader's Digest, 2006, (ISBN 076210810X)
  • Venables, Stephen and Bonington, Chris, Meetings with Mountains: Remarkable Face-to-face Encounters with the World's Peaks, Cassell, 2006, (ISBN 1844034496)
  • Venables, Stephen, Higher Than the Eagle Soars: A Path to Everest, Random House, 2007, (ISBN 0091795613)
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References

  1. Unsworth, Walt (2000). Everest, The Mountaineering History. Seattle, WA, USA: Mountaineers Books. p. 503. ISBN 978-0898866704. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. Template:Cite article
  3. Awards at banffcentre.ca

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