Customer Reviews

High Mountains and Cold Seas: A Biography of H.W. Tilman

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I like books about climbing and about climbers (in the mountaineering sense) and this is one of the better ones. Tilman was a great climber and explorer back before and after WWII. He climbed with Eric Shipton, was involved in the pre-war British Everest expeditions and climbed and explored on his own account, writing a number of books in the process. This biography follows his life from start to finish, and does it very readably. The Cold Seas part of the title refers to the latter part of Tilman's life, when he grew to old for more extreme climbing. He took to sailing, acquired a number of boats and sailed them to remoter parts of the world (Greenland, Patagonia, the South Indian Ocean), all of which makes for interesting reading. Well worth a read if you like biographies of climbers.

A man before his time, H. W. Tilman changed the history of mountaineering by creating an ethic of the small, compact team attempting to summit high peaks and sail remote seas.