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In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mount Everest. They climbed from the south, from Nepal, via the Khumbu Glacier - a route first pioneered in 1951 by a reconnaissance expedition led by Eric Shipton. Everest 1951 is the account of this expedition.
It was the first to approach the mountain from the south side, it pioneered a route through the Khumbu icefall and it was the expedition on which Hillary set foot on Everest for the first time. Everest 1951 is a short but vitally important read for anybody with any interest in mountaineering or in Everest. The 1951 Everest Expedition marked the public highpoint of Shipton's mountaineering fame. Key information was discovered and the foundations laid for future success. Despite this, Shipton's critics felt he had a 'lack of trust' and thus failed to match the urgent mood of the period.
Despite having been on more Everest expeditions than any man alive, he was 'eased' out of the crucial leadership role in 1953 and so missed the huge public acclaim given to Hillary, Tenzing Norgay and John Hunt after their historic success.
About the author
Eric Earle Shipton was one of the great mountaineering explorers of the twentieth century. He was a man with a flair for exploration, covering a vast amount of ground and pioneering a number of new climbs on remote mountains in his pursuit of the unknown. For Shipton, like his frequent climbing partner H.W. Tilman, exploration was everything, the tantalising view into a hidden valley more important than a prestigious summit. He preferred small and 'free' expeditions to large outfits, joking that any expedition should be organised on the back of an envelope. His ideal of achieving more with less, of travelling uncluttered and attuned to the landscape remains an inspiration to many. Born in 1907 in Ceylon, Shipton became one of the finest mountaineers in the world. He made the first ascent of Nelion on Mount Kenya by the age of twenty-two. Two years later, he made the first ascent of Kamet in the Garwhal Himalaya, the highest peak then climbed. He was involved with most of the Everest expeditions in the 1930s, reaching 28,000 feet in 1933, and went on to lead the 1951 expedition. This was the expedition that discovered the route through the Khumbu icefall and introduced Edmund Hillary to Mount Everest. But Shipton, with his preference for exploration, failed to match the urgent mood of the period and was 'eased' out of the leadership role. Despite discovering, quite literally, the route to success, Shipton was not present for the first ascent of the highest mountain in the world. Despite this, Shipton continued to explore and climb, travelling to the vast empty spaces of Patagonia and the southern ice caps, and visiting Alaska, Africa and Australia. All the while he wrote, recording his adventures in a series of books. The Six Mountain-Travel Books are now regarded as mountain exploration classics.
