Mountaineering

Eight days on the Lemosho route to 5,895 m — the highest you can get on foot without ropes.

The Goûter route to the 4,808 m roof of the Alps — glacier, snow ridge and thin air.

The Hörnli ridge to 4,478 m — sustained scrambling on the most recognisable peak in the Alps.

The Spaghetti Tour: five days hut to hut across the glaciers, bagging six 4,000-metre summits.

Two days on Shikoku's sacred peak, climbing iron chains hung down the rock by pilgrims centuries ago.

Three days on Japan's most feared non-technical peak, up chain-hung slabs with names like Crab's Vertical Climb.

Four days to North Africa's highest summit under snow, with crampons and an ice axe.

The highest summit in the Pyrenees, over a glacier and a knife-edge.

Three weeks on the glaciers of the highest mountain in North America, 6,190 m above the Alaska Range.

The glaciated volcano above Seattle, the classic American training ground for expeditions to Denali and the Himalaya.

The volcanic summit of Oregon, 3,429 m, climbed through the steep snow of the Pearly Gates in spring.

The hardest and most dangerous fourteeners in Colorado, on the loose red rock of Capitol Peak and the Maroon Bells.

Climbing to the crater rim of the volcano that blew apart in 1980, looking down on its steaming lava dome.

Hvannadalshnúkur, 2,110 m — Iceland's highest summit in a single 15-hour glacier day.