Alan Hinkes

He describes himself as risk-averse ("I climb to live, not to die", "The summit is optional, getting down is mandatory"), who places value on understanding, and being in the right position, to capitalise on breaks in weather. His later climbs were mostly two-man climbs with experienced sherpas (Pasang Gelu), where Hinkes could stay in control of events and react quickly. He was not averse to leveraging the resources of bigger expeditions alongside. Unusually for a 20–year high-altitude Himalayan eight-thousander, he has never lost any fingers or toes (or "other bits" as he describes it), to frostbite.

Hinkes is an avid photographer and released a photographic essay book in October 2013 called 8000 Metres Climbing the World's Highest Mountains. He is the subject of an October 2017 documentary by filmmaker, Terry Abraham, Alan Hinkes: The First Briton To Climb The World's Highest Mountains. Hinkes has frequently appeared on British television over the years, particularly regarding Himalayan events/stories, including BBC News, Sky News, Newsnight etc.

Over the years, Hinkes has had public fall-outs with other chasers of the 14 eight-thousanders. Australian climber Andrew Lock (who completed all 14 in 2009), was critical of Hinkes on their successful 1998 ascent of Nanga Parbat. Spanish climber Iñaki Ochoa de Olza, (who died on Annapurna of pulmonary edema, after completing 12 eight thousanders without oxygen), alleges that Hinkes had left him to bleed to death in order to summit K2, which Hinkes countered was factually untrue (Hinkes abandoned his first K2 climb, despite nearing the summit, to successfully rescue a stricken Swedish climber).

AdventureStats.com record 8,000m ascents not independently verified. Their website ("Verifications and Disputes") states that unless given written proof otherwise, "No proof other than the explorer's word is required", implying they give credit to Hawley's unverified allegations. It contrasts, for example, with Hawley, AdventureStats, and Eberhard Jurgalski's, acceptance of Denis Urubko's acclaimed 2009 ascent of Cho Oyu's Southeast face (and his 14th official eight-thousander), who reached the Cho Oyu summit plateau in the dark and in a snowstorm, per his summit photo from his AAJ log. (ascent number 2785 on Hawley's Himalayan Database).

In January 2006, after Kangchenjunga, Hinkes was awarded an OBE in the 2006 New Year Honours List for his achievements in mountaineering. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the University of Sunderland in 1999, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of York in 2007. He was awarded Yorkshire Man of the Year in 2005, and was made an honorary citizen of his hometown Northallerton in the same year.

Hinkes is the first British mountaineer to claim to have summited all 14 mountains in the world with elevations greater than 8,000 meters, known as the eight-thousanders, when he summited Kangchenjunga on 30 May 2005, aged 50 years and 34 days.

No other British mountaineer has yet claimed this. It was first achieved by Reinhold Messner in 1986 (all without oxygen), and two decades later, Hinkes was only the 13th person to have claimed the feat, days after U.S. climber Ed Viesturs became the 12th person on 22 May 2005.

The source of the dispute was that Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, whose Himalayan Database is used by online databases like AdventureStats, "unrecognised" his Cho Oyu ascent in Spring 2005 (15 years after summiting). Hawley based her decision on an interview with Hinkes, and on other team members. Hawley agrees Hinkes reached the summit plateau (as does Eberhard Jurgalski's list), but questions how Hinkes could have been on the “technical” summit for certain, if he could not see it.

The paragraph in Elizabeth Hawley's 2005 Seasonal Stories remains the only publicly verifiable source of the dispute over Hinkes' Cho Oyu ascent. No climbing journal disputes Hinkes' ascent, and some publicly support it. However, Hawley retains a well-earned stature as a Himalayan chronicler, and her Himalayan Database is the source for most online Himalayan ascent databases (e.g. AdventureStats). Hawley passed away in 2018.

Hinkes had to be air rescued from Nanga Parbat in July 1997 when flour from a burnt chapati got up his nose, making him sneeze so violently that he prolapsed a disc. He had to wait 10 days in agony before being rescued and brought to Islamabad for treatment. He has been referred to as the "chapati man" (even by himself) from this incident.

Hinkes took 26 attempts to climb the 14 eight-thousanders (not counting his ascent of Shishapangma Central (West) in 1990), giving a first attempt success rate of circa 54%. Hinkes spent 21 years on his "Challenge 8000", starting with his ascent of Shishapangma in September 1987, and ending with his ascent of Kangchenjunga in May 2005. Hinkes is recorded as summiting Mount Everest on 19 May 1996.

As an eight-thousander climber, Hinkes has encountered death on his own expeditions, and on neighbouring expeditions. Several of his climbing partners subsequently died on mountains. A particular death that Hinkes notes was fellow U.K. climbing partner, Alison Hargreaves, who died on K2 in 1995, weeks after Hinkes had summited K2.

Hawley does not use the public accounts of the non-French team members. Czech team member Josef Rakoncaj, photographed Hinkes on the summit plateau of Cho Oyu (Hinkes with his usual photo of his daughter held out), and states Hinkes summited in his book "Na hrotech zeměkoule" (co-authored with Miloš Jasanský, 1993). Italian team member Mauro Rossi lists the 1990 ascent of Cho Oyu in his public resume. Climbers with several Cho Oyu ascents, have disputed Hawley's main Cho Oyu summit criteria, "Did you see Everest?" (which is obviously unhelpful in Hinkes' case given the poor visibility), and the incorrect behaviours it is creating.

His 30 April 1990 ascent of Cho Oyu, which he completed alone in low visibility, is disputed by some observers. Cho Oyu has a broadly flat summit plateau with no cairn (the traditional prayer flags on Cho Oyu's summit plateau do not mark the "technical" summit). The summit is a small unmarked "hump" (or "bump") (which many Cho Oyu YouTube summit videos miss). While the height differential of this hump is small, Ralf Dujmovits, 3-time Cho Oyu summiter, notes that for a strong climber to get to the "hump" area can take another 30 minutes.

Hinkes logged the expedition's 30 April 1990 Cho Oyu ascent in the 1991 American Alpine Journal (AAJ), as well as the expedition's ascent of Shishapangma 12 days later on 12 May 1990, but he notes they climbed Shishapangma's central (west) summit (the true summit is circa two hours further on). Hawley's biography notes French expedition leader Benoît Chamoux: unhappy with this, as she did not credit Chamoux with Shishapangma either (Hawley had compelled the famous Himalayan mountaineer Ed Viesturs to re-climb Shishapangma for the same reason, which he did). Hinkes would not climb with Benoît Chamoux, or any of the French team members, again.

Hawley's Himalayan Database records 3,681 ascents of Cho Oyu of which 18 are "unrecognised" since 1960, despite the difficulty of finding Cho Oyu's "technical" summit, and that older expeditions considered the summit plateau as sufficient. Chamoux's 1990 Cho Oyu expedition comprise seven of these "unrecognised" ascents (including Alan Hinkes), while a German commercial trekking expedition, led by Günther Härter, who summited Cho Oyu just 19 days after Chamoux in 1990 (and also in very low visibility, as recorded by the Germans), comprise another six.

Alan Hinkes OBE (born 26 April 1954) is an English Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. He is the first and remains the only, British mountaineer to claim all 14 Himalayan eight-thousanders (mountains above 8,000m in height), which he did on 30 May 2005.