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Upon that Mountain is the first autobiography of the mountaineer
and explorer Eric Shipton. In it, he describes all his pre-war
climbing, including his Everest bids of the 1930s, and his second
Karakoram survey in 1939, when he returned to Snow Lake to complete
the mapping of the ranges flanking the Hispar and Choktoi glacier
systems around the Ogre. Crossing great swathes of the Himalaya,
the book, like so many of Shipton's works, is both entertaining and
an important addition to the mountain literature genre. It captures
an important period in mountaineering history - that just before
the Second World War - an ends on an elegiac note as Shipton
describes his last evening at the starkly-beautiful snow lake,
before he returns to a 'civilisation' about to embark on a
cataclysmic war.
'As I studied the maps, one thing about them captured my
imagination - Across this blank space was written one challenging
word, "Unexplored"' In 1937 two of the twentieth century's greatest
explorers set off to explore an unknown area of the Himalaya, the
breath-taking Shaksgam mountains. With a team of surveyors and
Sherpas, Eric Shipton and H.W. Tilman located and mapped the land
around K2, the second-highest mountain in the world. It was their
greatest venture, and one that paved the way for all future
mountaineering in that area of the Himalaya. For Shipton and
Tilman, exploration was everything, with a summit a welcome bonus,
and Blank on the Map is the book that best captures their spirit of
adventure. With an observant eye and keen sense of humour, Shipton
tells how the expedition entered the unknown Shaksgam mountains,
crossing impenetrable gorges, huge rivers and endless snow fields.
There's a very human element to Shipton's dealings with his Sherpa
friends, and with his Balti porters, some of whom were helpful,
while some were less so. The expedition uncovers traces of ancient
cultures and visits vibrant modern civilisations living during the
last days of the British Empire. Only when all supplies are
exhausted, their clothes in tatters and all equipment lost do the
men finally return home. A mountain exploration classic.
James Morris challenges the tourist cliches and looks at the impact
of human presence and the layers history in the landscape. He
reflects upon issues of identity, exploitation and regeneration; it
is a land of beauty and of hardship where - in this post
industrial, post rural economy - Tesco and tourism are now the
great employers. These are the contrasting realities of the Welsh
landscape - that seen by the many visitors and that experienced by
most inhabitants. Morris moves between tourist hot spots and the
terraces and back streets where the majority of people live. The
latter are often hard bitten unpretty places, often built for
reasons that no longer exist, no longer the world's largest
producer of iron, coal, copper or slate, these are places that have
lost their historic and heroic status, sometimes even their raison
d'etre. Regeneration is taking place, but it is taking its time. By
contrast the tourist landscape is one of pleasure seeking and
escape - this is the Wales that visitors are sold and want to see.
But in a small land this selling of culture for the tourist pound
has complex consequences that build on the complexities of a
relationship that has shaped so much of the landscape.
A unique appreciation of the hills of Wales; their character, the
inherent quality of their landscapes, their resonance and
histories. -- Welsh Books Council
Don Whillans has an iconic significance for generations of
climbers. His epoch-making first ascent of Annapurna's South Face,
achieved with Dougal Haston in 1970, remains one of the most
impressive climbs ever made - but behind this and all his other
formidable achievements lies a tough, recalcitrant reality: the
character of the man himself. Whillans carried within himself a
sense of personal invincibility, forceful, direct and
uncompromising. It gave him sporting superstar status - the flawed
heroism of a Best, a McEnroe, an Ali. In his own circle, his image
was the working-class hero on the rock-face, laconic and bellicose,
ready to go to war with the elements or with any human who crossed
his path on a bad day.
Using unpublished diaries, Jim Perrin, the acclaimed author of The
Villain and Menlove, tells the story of the greatest exploring
partnership in British history. In the 1930s Tilman and the younger
Shipton pioneered many routes in Africa and the Himalayas and found
the key to unlocking Everest. They crossed Africa by bicycle,
explored China with Spender and Auden, journeyed down the Oxus
River to its source and, with no support, opened up much of the
Nepalese Himalaya. In the words of Jim Perrin, 'The journeys of
discovery undertaken through two decades by this pair of
venturesome ragamuffins are unparallelled in the annals of mountain
exploration.' Jim Perrin writes of his source-material: 'These
unpublished diaries, journals, and extensive correspondence have
not previously been used to present a portrait of the most
productive friendship in the history of mountain exploration. What
they reveal is, in Shipton's phrase, "a random harvest of delight"
gathered by two uniquely bold and engaging characters from the
great mountain ranges of the world during the golden era of their
first western exploration. Between geographical excitement, the
nature of arduous travel in difficult and uncharted terrain
throughout a lost epoch, and the quirkiest and most stimulating of
friendships, the theme is a gift, and one that has long been
waiting for adequate treatment'.
West tells the story of Jim Perrin's life against the lives and
deaths of his cherished wife and son, and the landscapes through
which they travelled together. It is a complex and sensual
love-story, a celebration of the beauty and redemptive power of
wild nature and an extraordinary account of one man's journey
towards the acceptance of devastating personal loss.
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