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Joe Brown - 1985 - 1990
In 1985 Joe (along with Hamish McInnes and Mo Anthoine) was engaged as safety officer for the filming of "The Mission"; a film about conflict between a Jesuit priest and a 17th century slave trader set against a South American background. The work involved safeguarding the actors, occasionally doubling for them (Joe doubled for Robert de Niro) and preparing rock for stunts. Although much of the action apparently takes place in the middle of the jungle, in fact the waterfall used was situated just below a luxury hotel, which was the base for the film crew. At one time a concrete walkway had crossed the wide river above the falls from the hotel. This had been washed or fallen away over the years, but the stunt crew together with the safety officers decided it would be fun to try and make a crossing back to the hotel from the far side. It was necessary to wade up to chest depth to get from island to island. All was going fine until on one sandbank, Joe, who was leading, came face to face with a large cayman - the South American crocodile. Fortunately the beast decided that it was no match for Joe, and slipped away into the water. However, the group were now marooned on an island a quarter of a mile from either bank, now knowing that the rivers was cayman infested! They decided to press on, only to be halted a hundred yards from the hotel lawns by the deepest and fastest flowing part of the river. There was no alternative but to retrace their steps the whole way to reach the bank from which they had started.

Joe enjoyed the summer, both for the company, and the games they played, and got paid for it too! As result he has worked on several further films - the James Bond film "A view to a Kill" (when he was involved for several weeks in arranging a single spectacular stunt where “James Bond” skies down an alpine slope and jumps down into a 80 foot crevasse), "Rambo", filmed in Israel in 1987 and Fred Zinnerman's "Five Days one Summer" again in the Alps.
In 1985 Joe received an invitation to join an Everest expedition that was to attempt the N.E. Ridge from the Chinese side. Any expedition attempting this route was going to be pretty big. Although Joe had of recent years only been on small informal expeditions, the chance to see for himself the scenes described in all the Everest books he had devoured so eagerly as a boy outweighed his reservations about large expeditions, and he accepted readily. The expedition was led by Brummie Stokes, who, although he served in the S.A.S. came to mountaineering without the usual military outlook. As a precursor he had managed to get some free flights to Alaska for the team to train. Thus 1985 saw Joe, Mo, and Brummie on Mt. McKinley (20,340ft.). Their initial route was the voie normal - a route which follows the glacier to 14,000ft before traversing 1000ft. diagonally up a large icefield to reach the shoulder of the mountain at 17,000ft. Although the traverse is exposed the route is not of great technical difficulty. This ascent went without incident, and gave Joe and Mo an opportunity to cache some food for a planned later ascent. Clive Rowlands, John Fresh and Davy Jones arrived shortly after Brummie left and the new team set off, this time for the Cassin Ridge, a five day route of considerably more technical interest. The summit was reached successfully although their cache of food had unfortunately disappeared, and they had to beg food from another expedition, who were well supplied.

The 1986 Everest expedition approached from the northern side, following in the footsteps of the pre-war British expeditions, and visiting such places as the famed Rongbuk monastery. Once on the mountain itself life became much more intense, with a long hard climb between advanced base and camp one, which had to be done over and over again. Joe, as had always been the case, acclimatized easily, and paired with Mo spent a lot of time load carrying at around 24,000ft. As time went by the weather deteriorated, the winds increased and the jet stream gradually extended down the mountain. Indeed, Joe spent one night alone in a tent wondering if it (and he) would still be there in the morning or if all would be whisked away by the wind and end up flying over the Kangshung Face! Unfortunately once again the weather had beaten them. On popular Himalayan peaks there is always a great problem. Their popularity means that many expeditions have to accept less than ideal time slots, but simply by doing this they hugely reduce their chances of success as the likelihood of adverse weather is so much higher.
The following year, 1987, Joe was on expedition to Latok 2 (also known as Latok West, 23,319ft.; 7,108m.). The approach was as usual, up a glacier to establish a camp near its head. From there was a rising traverse to a camp established on the ridge. From here the route followed the ridge turning the pinnacles to the foot of the summit pyramid. A camp was established here. Joe led what proved to be the crux pitch of the ascent which started with an almost vertical chimney excavated in deep and poorly consolidated snow. At the top he was able to get a sound rock belay, and they placed a fixed rope on the pitch. Above the climbing proved somewhat easier, following ledges and chimneys to a high camp. Once this was established the party were in a position to make a summit attempt. Again Joe took the lead, making steady progress and fixing ropes on difficult sections for later. As the day wore on the weather deteriorated yet again, and they finally decided to return to the high camp. It continued to snow for 36 hours, at the end of which they decided that there was no alternative but to retreat to a lower camp. Even this was not easy, as visibility was now very poor, and finding the end of the fixed ropes took some time. Once down the technical section of the route they made faster progress and reached the glacier by nightfall, again beaten by the weather.
1998 saw a return to Everest. The team was similar to the 1986 one, with Russell Brice and Harry Taylor as lead climbers. But as in 1986 they suffered another failure in the face of poor weather.
In 1990 Joe joined an expedition to Cho Oyu, (25,905ft. 8,201m) the sixth highest mountain in the world, and accepted as the easiest of the 8,000m. peaks if it is climbed by the standard route. One of the aims of the expedition was to allow two paragliders to fly off the summit, and thus establish a tandem paragliding height record. There was little technical difficulty involved in the ascent, which climbs steadily to a ridge below the summit plateau. A camp was established here from which Russell Brice, Harry Taylor and one of the paragliders made a summit bid. In fact only Russell reached the summit, which involved a straightforward but very tiring walk across the summit plateau at over 8000m. In fact the visibility was so poor he was not even able to say categorically that he had stood on top of the highest point, but only that he had gone the appropriate distance in the right direction and stood on the highest lump he could see. He rejoined the others it to discuss their next move. If two were to make a tandem descent then one of the three was going to have to walk down alone. The solution was simple - a three-man descent — so establishing not just a tandem, but a triple paragliding height record! They went for it and remarkably reached base camp without incident. It was at 7,000m. on this expedition Joe came to a decision. High altitude mountaineering was now too much hard work. He was used to going better than his companions at these heights, but now, at 60, age was catching up with him and he was no longer the fittest. This was to be his last major expedition.
 
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