Eric Shipton: The Six Mountain-Travel Books (1985)•
Eric Shipton (1907-1977)Eric Shipton: The Six Mountain-Travel Books (1985)
[Bookmark, Devonport - 13/6/24]:
Eric Shipton. The Six Mountain-Travel Books: Nanda Devi; Blank on the Map; Upon That Mountain; Mountains of Tartary; The Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition 1951; Land of Tempest. 1936, 1938, 1943, 1953, 1952 & 1963. London: Diadem Books Ltd. / Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1985.
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Himalaya
So it seems that two scruffy young Englishmen, Eric Shipton and Bill Tilman, met in Kenya sometime in the late 1920s. The pair started to go on treks and climb mountains together, first in Africa, then in the Alps, and finally in the Himalayas. They shared a minimalist philosophy: a belief in small expeditions run on a shoe-string budget, composed of a couple of pals and a few locally recruited porters.
Not only this, but they each wrote a series of books about their expeditions, which have now been commodiously collected by the Mountaineers publishing house.
It is, I suppose, their joint exploits in the Himalayas which have guaranteed their fame. Shipton and Tilman either led or formed part of virtually all the post-Mallory British Everest expeditions, from the early 1930s until the 1950s. They also made many other pioneering explorations in the region.
If you'd like more information about all this, Jim Perrin's joint biography of the pair is indispensable. You may also find it profitable to look at the mountaineering books of their comrade Frank Smythe, himself an immensely prolific author, photographer and botanist.
Smythe is probably most celebrated for his discovery - during his succcessful 1931 expedition to climb Kamet (at the time the highest peak yet summitted) - of the "Valley of Flowers", now an Indian national park. It lies west of Nanda Devi, where Shipton and Tilman made some of their most important explorations.
It was said of Smythe that:
he had a tendency for irascibility, something some of his mountaineering contemporaries said "decreased with altitude".Shipton, too, admitted to a certain shortness of temper under stress. Probably Bill Tilman was the least temperamental of the trio, though he, too, could be somewhat taciturn at times. He was also the only one of them old enough to have fought in the war, at the Battle of the Somme, and was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery.- Wikipedia: biography
After all their years of climbing together, it's reported that the pair still addressed each other as "Shipton" and "Tilman", rather than by their first names.
They were accompanied on their 1937 "budget expedition" to the high Karakoram and Anghil region of the Himalayas by geologist John Bicknell Auden and surveyor Michael Spender, the elder brothers (respectively) of poets W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender.
This (according to Wikipedia) "set a record for single-expedition achievement that has never been equalled." It was also the subject of Eric Shipton's Blank on the Map (1938). His brother's earlier description of the approaches to the terrifying mountain K2 had provided inspiration for the Auden-Isherwood play, The Ascent of F6.
The list below is intended to show how comprehensively Shipton, Smythe and Tilman's respective books chronicle the various British expeditions to Mt. Everest between the two wars - and afterwards, up until 1951.
[NB: Mount Everest's Nepali/Sanskrit name is Sagarmāthā, literally "goddess of the sky", or "the head in the great blue sky". The Tibetan name for Everest is Qomolangma, literally "holy mother". This is generally romanised as "Chomolungma".
- 1921: Reconnaissance
The first British expedition — organized and financed by the newly formed Mount Everest Committee — under the leadership of Colonel Charles Howard-Bury, with Harold Raeburn as mountaineering leader. It also included George Mallory, Guy Bullock, and Edward Oliver Wheeler.
- 1922: First attempt
The second British expedition, under General Charles Granville Bruce and climbing leader Lt-Col. Edward Lisle Strutt, again including George Mallory.
- 1924: Mallory and Irvine
The third British expedition was led by Brigadier-General Charles Bruce, until he was forced by illness to relinquish leadership to Lt-Col. Edward Norton. George Mallory was then promoted to climbing leader. After two summit attempts on June 2nd (Mallory and Geoffrey Bruce) and June 4th (Edward Norton and Howard Somervell), Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off for a third attempt on June 8th and were never seen again - except, controversially, by Noel Odell "on the ridge, nearing base of final pyramid", though he subsequently wavered over whether this meant the first or the second step.
- 1933: Hugh Ruttledge
A major expedition, under the leadership of Hugh Ruttledge. On the first summit attempt, Lawrence Wager and Percy Wyn-Harris intended to follow the Northeastern ridge, but were unable to reach it. A subsequent attempt by Eric Shipton and Frank Smythe followed the same route but Smythe, who pressed on alone when Shipton turned back because of illness, got no higher.
- 1935: Reconnaissance (Shipton)
Eric Shipton led a small reconnaissance expedition (including Bill Tilman) during the monsoon season, in preparation for the following year's expedition. Shipton decided that an ascent from the Western Cwm would be possible if entry from the Nepalese side could be made. This is the route by which the mountain was eventually climbed in 1953. It was also the first visit to Everest for Tenzing Norgay.
- 1938: Bill Tilman
Bill Tilman was appointed leader of the 1938 Everest expedition, which attempted the ascent via the North Col. The North Col was reached from the west for the first time and the team went on to over 27,200 ft before being forced down by bad weather and sickness.
- 1950: Bill Tilman (Nepal)
In 1950, Bill Tilman and a small party including Charles Houston, Oscar Houston, and Betsy Cowles undertook an exploratory expedition to Everest through Nepal along the route which has now become the standard approach to Everest from the south.
- 1951: Reconnaissance (Shipton)
A British expedition led by Eric Shipton, and including Edmund Hillary, Tom Bourdillon, W. H. Murray, and Mike Ward, travelled into Nepal to survey a new route via the southern face. Shipton and Hillary were able to see the whole of the Western Cwm and concluded that ascent was possible from the top of the Cwm to the west face of Lhotse followed by a traverse to the South Col. They spent the next month attempting to reach the Western Cwm through the Khumbu Icefall but were stopped just short of success.
- 1952: Swiss
A Swiss expedition led by Edouard Wyss-Dunant attempted to climb via the South Col and the southeast ridge. On May 27, four climbers (Raymond Lambert, Tenzing Norgay, Rene Aubert, and Leon Flory) started from their tents on the South Col. On May 28 in unsettled weather, the final assault team of Lambert and Tenzing turned back 500 ft short of the south summit.
- 1953: Hillary and Tenzing
In 1953, a ninth British expedition, led by John Hunt and organized and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee, returned to Nepal. After Wilfrid Noyce and Annullu had forced a passage to the South Col, two climbing pairs attempted to reach the summit. The first pair, Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon, achieved the first ascent of the 28,700 ft South Summit, within as little as 300 ft of the final summit, but could go no further. Two days later, the summit was eventually reached at 11:30 am local time on May 29, 1953, by the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepali, climbing the South Col route. There was intense public speculation as to which of the pair had set foot on the summit first. In 1955 Tenzing disclosed in his autobiography that it was Hillary. Returning to Kathmandu a few days later, Hillary and Hunt discovered that they had been knighted for their efforts.
[Information from Charles Howard-Bury, George Mallory & A. F. R. Wollaston: Mount Everest, the Reconnaissance, 1921 (1922)]
[Information on these expeditions from Wade Davis: Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest (2011)]
[Information from Frank Smythe: Camp Six: The 1933 Everest Expedition (1937)]
[Information from Tony Astill: Mount Everest, The Reconnaissance 1935: The Forgotten Adventure (2005)]
[Information from H. W. Tilman: Everest 1938 (1948)]
[Information from H. W. Tilman: Nepal Himalaya (1952)]
[Information from Eric Shipton: The Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition 1951 (1952)]
[Information from Man of Everest: The Autobiography of Tenzing, Told to James Ramsey Ullmann (1955)]
[Information from John Hunt: The Ascent of Everest (1954); Edmund Hillary: High Adventure (1955); John Hunt: The Ascent of Everest (1954); & Man of Everest: The Autobiography of Tenzing, Told to James Ramsey Ullmann (1955)]
Many felt at the time that the Himalayan Committee's decision to replace Eric Shipton with John Hunt as leader of the 1953 expedition was made in a shabby and underhand way. Shipton did provide his critics with some potent ammunition, though. He admitted in a letter to the committee that: "My well-known dislike of large expeditions and my abhorrence of a competitive element in mountaineering might well seem out of place in the present situation." By making this comment he is said to have "sealed his own fate":
Several members of the British expedition had a strong loyalty to Shipton and were unhappy that he had been replaced. Charles Evans, for instance, stated, "It was said that Shipton lacked the killer instinct – not a bad thing to lack in my view." Edmund Hillary was among those most opposed to the change, but he was won over by Hunt's personality and by his admission that the change had been badly handled. George Band recalls Committee member Larry Kirwan, the Director/Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, saying that "they had made the right decision but in the worst possible way".However posterity may judge his skills as a leader, Eric Shipton's contemplative personality, and lack of "the killer instinct", is probably one of the reasons we still savour his beguiling, richly evocative books today - along with (of course) those of his friends, Frank Smythe and Bill Tilman.- Wikipedia: 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition
Authors:
- Edmund Hillary (1919-2008)
- John Hunt (1910-1998)
- George Mallory (1886-1924)
- Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986)
- Eric Shipton (1907-1977)
- Frank Smythe (1900-1949)
- H. W. Tilman (1898-1977)
- Secondary Literature
Books I own are marked in bold:
- High Adventure. 1955. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1958.
- [with George Lowe] East of Everest – An Account of the New Zealand Alpine Club Himalayan Expedition to the Barun Valley in 1954 (1956)
- [with Vivian Fuchs] The Crossing of Antarctica: the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1955-58. 1958. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960.
- The New Zealand Antarctic Expedition (1959)
- No Latitude for Error (1961)
- [with Desmond Doig] High in the Thin Cold Air (1962)
- Schoolhouse in the Clouds (1965)
- Nothing Venture, Nothing Win. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975.
- From the Ocean to the Sky: Jet Boating Up the Ganges (1979)
- [with Peter Hillary] Two Generations (1984)
- View from the Summit: The Remarkable Memoir by the First Person to Conquer Everest (2000)
- The Ascent of Everest. London: The Companion Book Club, 1954.
- Our Everest Adventure: The Pictorial History from Kathmandu to the Summit. Leicester: Brockhampton Press Ltd., 1954.
- Boswell the Biographer (1912)
- [with Charles Howard-Bury & A. F. R. Wollaston] Mount Everest, the Reconnaissance, 1921 (1922)
- Davis, Wade. Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest. 2011. Vintage. London: Random House, 2012.
- Ghosts of Everest: The Authorised Story of the Search for Mallory & Irvine, by Jochen Hemmleb, Larry A. Johnson, & Eric R. Simonson of the Expedition Team that Found Mallory on Everest, as Told to William R. Nothdurft. 1999. Pan Books. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 2000.
- Man of Everest: The Autobiography of Tenzing, Told to James Ramsey Ullmann. 1955. London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1955.
- Nanda Devi (1936)
- Blank on the Map (1938)
- Upon That Mountain (1943)
- The Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition 1951 (1952)
- Mountains of Tartary (1953)
- Land of Tempest (1963)
- That Untravelled World (1969)
- Tierra del Fuego: the Fatal Lodestone (1973)
- The Six Mountain-Travel Books: Nanda Devi; Blank on the Map; Upon That Mountain; Mountains of Tartary; The Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition 1951; Land of Tempest. 1936, 1938, 1943, 1953, 1952 & 1963. London: Diadem Books Ltd. / Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1985.
- Climbs and Ski Runs (1930)
- The Kangchenjunga Adventure (1930)
- Kamet Conquered (1932)
- An Alpine Journey (1934)
- The Spirit of the Hills (1935)
- Over Tyrolese Hills (1936)
- Camp Six (1937)
- The Valley of Flowers (1938)
- "Peaks and Flowers of the Central Himalayas." Geographical Magazine (1938)
- The Mountain Scene (1937)
- Peaks and Valleys (1938)
- A Camera in the Hills (1939)
- Mountaineering Holiday (1940)
- Edward Whymper (1940)
- My Alpine Album (1940)
- Adventures of a Mountaineer (1940)
- The Mountain Vision (1941)
- Over Welsh Hills (1941)
- Alpine Ways (1942)
- Secret Mission (1942)
- British Mountaineers (1942)
- Snow on the hills (1946)
- The Mountain Top (1947)
- Again Switzerland (1947)
- Rocky Mountains (1948)
- Swiss Winter (1948)
- Mountains in Colour (1949)
- Climbs in the Canadian Rockies (1950)
- The Six Alpine/Himalayan Climbing Books: Climbs and Ski Runs; The Kangchenjunga Adventure; Kamet Conquered; Camp Six; The Valley of Flowers; Mountaineering Holiday. 1930, 1930, 1932, 1937, 1938 & 1940. London: Bâton Wicks / Seattle: The Mountaineers, 2000.
- Snow on the Equator (1937)
- The Ascent of Nanda Devi (1937)
- When Men and Mountains Meet (1946)
- Mount Everest 1938 (1948)
- Two Mountains and a River (1949)
- China to Chitral (1951)
- Nepal Himalaya (1952)
- Mischief in Patagonia (1957)
- Mischief among the Penguins (1961)
- Mischief in Greenland (1964)
- Mostly Mischief (1966)
- Mischief Goes South (1968)
- In Mischief's Wake (1971)
- Ice With Everything (1974)
- Triumph and Tribulation (1977)
- Adventures under Sail: Selected Writings. 1957, 1961, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1971, 1974 & 1977. Ed. Libby Purves. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1982.
- The Seven Mountain-Travel Books: Snow on the Equator; The Ascent of Nanda Devi; When Men and Mountains Meet; Everest, 1938; Two Mountains and a River; China to Chitral; Nepal Himalaya. 1937, 1937, 1946, 1948, 1949, 1951 & 1952. Introduction by Jim Perrin. London: Diadem Books Ltd. / Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1983.
- Eight Sailing/Mountain-Exploration Books: Mischief in Patagonia; Mischief among the Penguins; Mischief in Greenland; Mostly Mischief; Mischief Goes South; In Mischief's Wake; Ice With Everything; Triumph and Tribulation. 1957, 1961, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1971, 1974 & 1977. London: Diadem Books Ltd. / Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1987.
- Astill, Tony. Mount Everest, The Reconnaissance 1935: The Forgotten Adventure. London: Tony Astill, 2005.
- Auden, W. H. & Christopher Isherwood. The Ascent of F6 & On the Frontier. 1958. London: Faber, 1972.
- French, Patrick. Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer. 1994. Flamingo. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.
- Perrin, Jim. Shipton and Tilman: The Great Decade of Himalayan Exploration. 2013. Arrow Books. London: Random House, 2014.
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- category - Travel & Exploration: Exploration
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