<p>'Whether these mountains are climbed or not, smaller expeditions are a step in the right direction.' It's 1938, the British have thrown everything they've got at Everest but they've still not reached the summit. War in Europe seems inevitable; the Empire is shrinking. Still reeling from failure in 1936, the British are granted one more permit by the Tibetans, one more chance to climb the mountain. Only limited resources are available, so can a small team be assembled and succeed where larger teams have failed? H.W. Tilman is the obvious choice to lead a select team made up of some of the greatest British mountaineers history has ever known, including Eric Shipton , Frank Smythe and Noel Odell . Indeed, Tilman favours this lightweight approach. He carries oxygen but doesn't trust it or think it ethical to use it himself, and refuses to take luxuries on the expedition, although he does regret leaving a case of champagne behind for most of his time on the mountain. On the mountain, the team is cold, the weather very wintery. It is with amazing fortitude that they establish a camp six at all, thanks in part to a Sherpa going by the family name of Tensing. Tilman carries to the high camp, but exhausted he retreats, leaving Smythe and Shipton to settle in for the night. He records in his diary, 'Frank and Eric going well think they may do it.' But the monsoon is fast approaching ... In Mount Everest 1938 , first published in 1948, Tilman writes that it is difficult to give the layman much idea of the actual difficulties of the last 2,000 feet of Everest. He returns to the high camp and, in exceptional style, they try for the ridge, the route to the summit and those immense difficulties of the few remaining feet.</p>

Mount Everest 1938: Whether these mountains are climbed or not, smaller expeditions are a step in the right direction (H.W. Tilman - The Collected Edition)

Travel

Tilman CBE DSO MC Bar, Major H. W.

Travel Writing

Tilman

<p>'An expedition that cannot organise itself … on the back of an old envelope, is bound to suffer from the effects of too much organisation.' H.W. Tilman 's Two Mountains and a River picks up where Mount Everest 1938 left off. In this instalment of adventures, Tilman and two Swiss mountaineers set off for the Gilgit region of the Himalaya with the formidable objective of an attempt on the giant Rakaposhi (25,550 feet). However, this project was not to be fulfilled. Not one to be dispirited, Tilman and his various accomplices-including pioneering mountaineer and regular partner Eric Shipton -continue to trek and climb in locations across China, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other areas of Asia, including the Kukuay Glacier, Muztagh Ata, the source of the Oxus river, and Ishkashim, where the author was arrested on suspicion of being a spy... Two Mountains and a River brims with the definitive Tilman qualities-detailed observations and ever-present humour-that convey a strong appreciation of the adventures and mishaps he experiences along the way. With a new foreword from prominent trekker, climber and lecturer, Gerda Pauler , this classic mountaineering text maintains Tilman's name as a unique and inquisitive explorer and raconteur.</p>

Two Mountains and a River: I made a resolve not to begin climbing until assured by a plague of flies that summer had really come (H.W. Tilman - The Collected Edition)

Biographies & Memoirs

H. W. Tilman

Historical

'I felt like one who had first betrayed and then deserted a stricken friend; a friend with whom for the past fourteen years I had spent more time at sea than on land, and who, when not at sea, had seldom been out of my thoughts.' The first of the three voyages described in In Mischief's Wake gives H.W. 'Bill' Tilman's account of the final voyage and loss of Mischief, the Bristol Channel pilot cutter in which he had sailed over 100,000 miles to high latitudes in both Arctic and Antarctic waters. Back home, refusing to accept defeat and going against the advice of his surveyor, he takes ownership of Sea Breeze, built in 1899; 'a bit long in the tooth, but no more so, in fact a year less, than her prospective owner'. After extensive remedial work, his first attempt at departure had to be cut short when the crew 'enjoyed a view of the Isle of Wight between two of the waterline planks'. After yet more expense, Sea Breeze made landfall in Iceland before heading north toward the East Greenland coast in good shape and well stocked with supplies. A mere forty miles from the entrance to Scoresby Sound, Tilman's long-sought-after objective, 'a polite mutiny' forced him to abandon the voyage and head home. The following year, with a crew game for all challenges, a series of adventures on the west coast of Greenland gave Tilman a voyage he considered 'certainly the happiest', in a boat which was proving to be a worthy successor to his beloved Mischief.

In Mischief's Wake: In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action. That is the explanation, that the excuse. (H.W. Tilman - The Collected Edition)

Arts & Literature

Triumph and Tribulation: No ship should be without Tabasco sauce (H.W. Tilman - The Collected Edition)

Sports & Outdoors

Harold William 'Bill' Tilman (1898-1977) was among the greatest adventurers of his time, a pioneering mountaineer and navigator who held exploration above all else. The son of a Liverpool sugar importer, Tilman joined the army at seventeen and was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery during WWI. After the war Tilman left for Africa, establishing himself as a coffee grower. He met Eric Shipton and they began their famed mountaineering partnership, traversing Mount Kenya and climbing Kilimanjaro . Turning to the Himalaya , Tilman went on two Mount Everest expeditions, reaching 27,000 feet without oxygen in 1938. In 1936 he made the first ascent of Nanda Devi , the highest mountain climbed until 1950. He was the first European to climb in the remote Assam Himalaya , delved into Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor and explored extensively in Nepal, all the while developing a mountaineering style characterised by its simplicity and emphasis on exploration. It was perhaps logical that Tilman would eventually buy the pilot cutter Mischief , not with the intention of retiring from travelling, but to access remote mountains. For twenty-two years he sailed Mischief and her successors in search of them-to Patagonia , where he made the first easterly crossing of the ice cap, to Baffin Island to make the first ascent of Mount Raleigh , to Greenland , Spitsbergen , and islands in the far Southern Ocean, before disappearing in the South Atlantic in 1977. J.R.L. Anderson 's High Mountains and Cold Seas draws on a wealth of personal correspondence between Tilman-a compulsive letter writer and his immediate family and close friends, crafting the first detailed account of the extraordinary life of this remarkable but very private individual.

High Mountains and Cold Seas: The life of H.W. `Bill' Tilman: soldier, mountaineer, navigator (H.W. Tilman - The Collected Edition)

Anderson, Mr John R.L.

Mountaineering

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