Stephen Venables, mountaineer, writer, broadcaster and public speaker, was the first Briton to climb Everest without supplementary oxygen. He reached the summit alone, after climbing with a small American-Canadian team, by a new route up the gigantic Kangshung Face.

Everest was a thrilling highlight in a career which has taken Stephen right through the Himalaya, from Afghanistan to Tibet, making first ascents of many previously unknown mountains. His adventures have also taken him to the Rockies, the Andes, the Antarctic island South Georgia, East Africa, South Africa and of course the European Alps, where he has climbed and skied for over forty years.

© Joe McGorty

The stories of these travels have enthralled Stephen’s lecture audiences in theatres, schools and university clubs and at corporate conferences all over the world. He has also appeared in television documentaries for BBC, ITV and National Geographic, presented for Radio 4 and appeared in the IMAX movie Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure.

He has written for all the London broadsheet newspapers, covering exploration and adventure, as well as more diverse subjects such as transport, gardening, music and sculpture.

Painted Mountains, Stephen’s first book, won the 1986 Boardman Tasker Prize for mountain literature. Subsequent books have won the Grand Prize at the Banff International Mountain Festival and the King Albert Award. His ninth book, published in 2006, is the Sunday Times bestseller Ollie – the touching story of his elder son who had autism and who died from a brain tumour.

In 2007 Stephen will be busy completing another new book, covering Ranulph Fiennes’ attempt on the North Face of the Eiger, attending the premiere the new IMAX film on the Eiger – for which he wrote the screenplay – and coordinating the 150th anniversary celebrations of the Alpine Club, of which he is the current president.