Leo Houlding | |
---|---|
Born | 28 July 1980 |
Nationality | British |
Occupation(s) | rock climber and mountaineer |
Children | 2 [1] |
Leo Houlding (born 28 July 1980) is a British rock climber and mountaineer. [2] [3]
Houlding began rock climbing at the age of 10. [4] In 1996, he became the British Junior Indoor Climbing Champion. [5] He spent the summer of 1997, aged 17, living in and around Llanberis in North Wales.
In 2005, Houlding appeared in the BBC television program Top Gear in which he raced presenter Jeremy Clarkson up a cliff face in Verdon Gorge, winning the challenge. Houlding, joined by Tim Emmett, climbed the canyon whilst Clarkson drove an Audi RS4 to the top using the surrounding roads. [6] He has also appeared several times on the Audi Channel.
He was the subject of the 2003 TV documentary "My Right Foot" which was part of the Extreme Lives series aired on BBC Television. [7]
In 2007, he joined the 2007 Altitude Everest Expedition, led by American climber and mountaineer, Conrad Anker, retracing the last steps of legendary British climber, George Mallory, on Mount Everest. [8]
In 2008, Houlding presented Take Me to the Edge , a British reality series on Virgin1 (later repeated on STV); and signed a deal with Ford Motor Company to become a brand ambassador for their pick up truck, the Ford Ranger.
In August 2009, he led a team of climbers and filmmakers to Mount Asgard on Baffin Island, Canada. They attempted to free climb a 15-pitch route up the north face of the mountain to create the first free route. Although over half of the ascent was eventually freed, the team was unable to complete the full free ascent within the available time. Houlding and American team member Sean 'Stanley' Leary BASE jumped from the summit. The ascent took 12 days and is featured in the 2010 film The Asgard Project. [9]
He appeared in the 2010 film, The Wildest Dream , along with Conrad Anker retracing the steps of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine in order to recreate their journey up Mount Everest.
In 2010, he completed his 10-year project The Prophet, becoming the first Briton to free a new route on El Capitan in Yosemite.
From December 2012 to January 2013, a team led by Houlding and including Alastair Lee, Chris Rabone, Sean Leary, Jason Pickles, and David Reeves made the first ascent of a new route up the north-east ridge of Ulvetanna Peak in Antarctica. The peak was described as 'the most demanding peak on the world's toughest continent' via its fearsome north-east ridge. The film that was produced, The Last Great Climb premiered in London on 5 November 2013.
After his Mount Asgard climbing partner Sean 'Stanley' Leary's wingsuit death in 2014, Houlding stopped BASE jumping. Houlding returned to summit Mount Asgard in 2023, establishing a new 12-pitch line called Loki's Mischief on the mountain's 1200m East Face. [10]
In 2020, Houlding's entire family reached the summit of the Piz Badile, including his seven-year-old daughter who climbed it unaided (the youngest ever to reach the summit), and his 3-year-old son (carried on his mother's back). [11]
Mount Everest, known locally as Sagarmatha or Qomolangma, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation of 8,848.86 m was most recently established in 2020 by the Chinese and Nepali authorities.
George Herbert Leigh-Mallory was an English mountaineer who participated in the first three British Mount Everest expeditions in the early 1920s. He and climbing partner Andrew "Sandy" Irvine were last seen ascending near Everest's summit during the 1924 expedition, sparking debate as to whether they reached it before they died.
Andrew Comyn "Sandy" Irvine was a British mountaineer who took part in the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition, the third British expedition to the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest.
The goal of the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition of 1999 was to discover evidence of whether George Mallory and Andrew Irvine had been the first to summit Mount Everest in their attempt of 8–9 June 1924. Key objectives included finding Irvine's body and retrieving a camera that might hold proof of their summit success. Jochen Hemmleb, after reviewing historical records, pinpointed a search area based on a 1975 Chinese expedition report. The expedition was instigated by British climber Graham Hoyland. It was organised by regular Everest expedition leader Eric Simonson and advised by researcher Jochen Hemmleb, with a team of climbers from the United States, United Kingdom and Germany.
Mount Asgard is a twin peaked mountain with two flat-topped, cylindrical, rock towers, separated by a saddle. It is located in Auyuittuq National Park, on the Cumberland Peninsula of Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. The peak is named after Asgard, the realm of the Æsir (gods) in Norse mythology. Mount Asgard is perhaps the most famous of the Baffin Mountains.
The Kangshung Face or East Face is the eastern-facing side of Mount Everest, one of the Tibetan sides of the mountain. It is 3,350 metres (11,000 ft) from its base on the Kangshung Glacier to the summit. It is a broad face, topped on the right by the upper Northeast Ridge, and on the left by the Southeast Ridge and the South Col. Most of the upper part of the face is composed of hanging glaciers, while the lower part consists of steep rock buttresses with couloirs between them. The steep southern third of the Kangshung Face also comprises the Northeastern Face of Lhotse; this section may be considered a separate face altogether following the division of the South "Neverest" Buttress up to the South Col. It is considered a dangerous route of ascent, compared to the standard North Col and South Col routes, and it is the most remote face of the mountain, with a longer approach.
Stewart Alexander Lowe was an American mountaineer. He has been described as inspiring "...a whole generation of climbers and explorers with his uncontainable enthusiasm, legendary training routines, and significant ascents of rock climbs, ice climbs, and mountains all over the world...". He died in an avalanche on Shishapangma, in Tibet. The Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation honors his legacy.
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at 8,849 metres (29,031.7 ft) above sea level. It is situated in the Himalayan range of Solukhumbu district, Nepal.
Conrad Anker is an American rock climber, mountaineer, and author. He was the team leader of The North Face climbing team for 26 years until 2018. In 1999, he located George Mallory's body on Everest as a member of a search team looking for the remains of the British climber who was last seen in 1924. Anker had a heart attack in 2016 during an attempted ascent of Lunag Ri with David Lama. He was flown via helicopter to Kathmandu where he underwent emergency coronary angioplasty with a stent placed in his proximal left anterior descending artery. Afterwards he retired from high altitude mountaineering, but otherwise he continues his work. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.
Kevin Thaw is a British rock climber and mountaineer.
The 2007 Altitude Everest expedition, led by the American climber Conrad Anker, arrived at Base Camp below the north face of Everest in May 2007 and retraced the last journey of British climber George Mallory who was lost during the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition.
Jimmy Chin is an American professional mountain athlete, photographer, skier, film director, and author.
The 1924 British Mount Everest expedition was—after the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition—the 2nd expedition with the goal of achieving the first ascent of Mount Everest. After two summit attempts in which Edward Norton set a world altitude record of 8,572.8 metres (28,126 ft), the mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine disappeared on the third attempt. Their disappearance has given rise to the long-standing speculation of whether or not the pair might – under a narrow set of assumptions – have reached the summit. Mallory's body was found in 1999 at 8,156 metres (26,760 ft), but the resulting clues did not provide any conclusive evidence as to whether the summit was reached. Irvine's partial remains were later found in 2024 by a National Geographic team during a descent of the Rongbuk Glacier by the north face.
The Wildest Dream is a 2010 theatrical-release feature documentary film about the British climber George Mallory who disappeared on Mount Everest in 1924 with his climbing partner Andrew Irvine. The film interweaves two stories, one about climber Conrad Anker returning to Everest to investigate Mallory's disappearance and the other a biography of Mallory told through letters, original film footage from the 1920s and archival photos. The film was released in the US and on giant screen cinemas around the world by National Geographic Entertainment in August 2010 as The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest. The film was released in the UK by Serengeti Entertainment in September 2010 as The Wildest Dream.
The Three Steps are three prominent rocky steps on the northeast ridge of Mount Everest. They are located at altitudes of 8,564 metres (28,097 ft), 8,610 metres (28,250 ft), and 8,710 metres (28,580 ft). The Second Step is especially significant both historically and in mountaineering terms. Any climber who wants to climb on the normal route from the north of the summit must negotiate these three stages.
Paul ("Tut") Braithwaite is a British rock climber, mountaineer, and company director. With Nick Estcourt he climbed Mount Everest's almost vertical Rock Band, a key to the success of the 1975 British Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition. He was president of the Alpine Club from 2007 to 2010.
Tim Emmett, is a British-born adventure climber and climbing author. He is known for his participation in a diverse range of climbing disciplines, including ice-climbing, rock climbing, deep-water soloing and alpine climbing. Emmett has established the hardest waterfall ice-climbs in the world, and was the first to climb grades of W10 and above.
Renan Öztürk is a Turkish-American rock climber, free soloist, mountaineer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He is best known for climbing the Shark's Fin route on his second attempt to Meru Peak in the Himalayas with Jimmy Chin and Conrad Anker in 2011, where he also suffered a minor stroke. The successful 2011 ascent of the Shark's Fin on Meru and a prior attempt in 2008 were detailed in the 2015 documentary film Meru.
The 1960 Chinese Mount Everest expedition was allegedly the first to successfully ascend Mount Everest via the North Ridge. Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo, and Qu Yinhua reached the summit at 4:20 a.m. on 25 May. Many Western professional climbers doubt the veracity of the Chinese claim, including Conrad Anker and Reinhold Messner.