In April 2014 Mark Horrell went on a mountaineering expedition to Nepal, hoping to climb Lhotse, the fourth-highest mountain in the world, which shares a base camp and climbing route with Mount Everest.He dreamed of following in the footsteps of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, by climbing through the infamous ice maze of the Khumbu Icefall, and he yearned to sleep in the grand amphitheatre of Everest Base Camp, surrounded by towering peaks.He was also intrigued by the media publicity surrounding commercial expeditions to Everest. He wanted to discover for himself whether it had become the circus that everybody described.But when a devastating avalanche swept across the Khumbu Icefall, he got more than he bargained for. Suddenly he found himself witnessing the greatest natural disaster Everest had ever seen.And that was just the start. Everest Sherpas came out in protest, issuing a list of demands to the Government of Nepal. What happened next left his team confused, bewildered...

This is the tale of Mark Horrell's not-so-nearly ascent of Gasherbrum in Pakistan; of how one man's boredom and frustration is conquered by a gutsy combination of exhaustion, cowardice, and sheer mountaineering incompetence.Not one, not two, but three intrepid assaults were made on the summits, some of which got quite a distance beyond base camp, and many perilous circumstances were overcome along the way. Joe Simpson may have crawled for five days with a broken leg, but did he ever have to read "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown while waiting for a weather window?But that's enough about the author's attempt; there were some talented climbers on the mountain as well, and this story is also about them. How did they get on? *Heroes, villains, oddballs and nutters* - 8000 metre peaks attract them all, and drama, intrigue and cock-ups aplenty were inevitable.Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers is Mark Horrell's travel journal from his experience of joining the 8000 metre peak circus on Gasherbrum in Pakistan, and contains many photographs from his expedition.