Shipton & Tilman – The Great Decade of Himalayan Exploration

Using unpublished diaries, Jim Perrin, the acclaimed author of The Villain and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Jim Perrin writes of his source-material: ‹These unpublished diaries,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›.