Smoking and climbing

I'm fascinated by the search queries that lead casual browsers to this blog.

OK, not fascinated. That would be freaky. Curious.

In the past week they have included 'Nigella and John Diamond', 'The Hour BBC smoking', 'Victoria Derbyshire smoking', and 'Hosepipe in exhaust'.

A query that repeatedly turns up is a variation on 'smoking and climbing'. (Sometimes it's expressed in other ways. For example, 'smoking impact at high altitudes'.)

Now, you might think that mountaineers are fit and healthy chaps who would struggle to climb some of the world's highest peaks handicapped by a 20-a-day habit.

And yet ... a non-smoking friend (pictured above on the summit of the Matterhorn last year) told me:

"We were bivvying at 4000m on the way down just outside the Salvay hut and facing a hard night when my guide, an occasional smoker, spotted a Dutch climber rolling a cigarette.

"He went over and said he could murder a cigarette. The Dutchman said he knew how he felt, proceeded to smoke his cigarette, and went inside the hut leaving the guide with his tongue hanging out."

By coincidence another friend - an habitual smoker and boozer for many, many years - also climbed the Matterhorn last year.

He returned with a similar story of climbers cadging (or trying to cadge) cigarettes off one another.

Or hiding their cigarettes from their (shock horror) non-smoking guide.

Smoking at high altitude? It's de rigeur.