Eric Shipton

Eric Earle Shipton (born August 1, 1907 in Sri Lanka , † March 28, 1977 ) was a British high altitude climber , expedition leader and author.

Life

After his birth in Ceylon , he grew up in England . In his youth he undertook his first mountain tours in the Alps . At the age of 21, he moved to Kenya in 1928 , where he earned his living as a coffee grower. In 1929 he managed the first ascent of the Nelion , a secondary summit of Mount Kenya . In Kenya he met his future rope companions Bill Tilman and Percy Wyn-Harris , with whom he climbed the double-peaked Mount Kenya.

Together with Frank Smythe, he climbed Mount Kamet on June 21, 1931 , his first significant Himalayan peak . At 7756  m this was the highest mountain in the world climbed at the time.

In 1934, with Bill Tilman and Sherpas , he succeeded in finding the ascent through the previously inaccessible gorge of the Rishiganga to the foot of the Nanda Devi in Garhwal, India , a prerequisite for Tilman and Odell's first ascent of the summit ( 7816  m ) in 1936.

In the 1930s Shipton was involved in all British Everest expeditions that were undertaken from the Tibetan side because Nepal did not allow foreigners into the country. He led the exploration expedition of 1935 , in which the young Tenzing Norgay took part for the first time , and reached heights of up to 8500  m .

In the 1940s Shipton was consul of the United Kingdom in Kashgar and Kunming / Yünnan. At this time there is also an attempt to climb the Mustagh Ata in Central Asia. He used the time of his activity in Kashgar to explore the high mountain regions of Central Asia. In 1961/62 he managed to cross the southern Patagonian ice field ( Campo de Hielo Sur ).

After the Second World War, he also led the exploration expedition of 1951 on the now open Nepalese side, which opened up the new route over the Khumbu Valley in Nepal to the highest peak on earth. Now Tibet and the usual north side of Everest were closed to foreigners because of the Chinese invasion. The Shipton expedition, in which Edmund Hillary also took part, found the southern access to Everest through the Khumbu Icefall into the Valley of Silence , today the "standard route".

However, he was denied - in favor of John Hunt - the management of the successful Everest expedition of 1953 : those responsible in the London “ Alpine Club ” now considered Shipton to be too old and not sufficiently assertive. Some experienced team members of the Everest expeditions wanted to refuse to undertake further attempts on Everest under any direction other than Shiptons, but Shipton himself asked them to trust the new expedition leader John Hunt. Under his leadership of the expedition, the Tenzing / Hillary team succeeded in the first proven ascent on the route explored by Shipton in 1953.

Shipton Ridge , a mountain ridge in East Antarctica, Victoria Land , and Shipton's Arch in Xinjiang , China, are named after him .

Publications

• Nanda Devi. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1936.
• Blank on the map. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1938
• Upon That Mountain. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1943
• Mountains of Tartary. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1953
• Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition 1951. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1952.
• Eric Shipton: The six Mountain Travel Books. New Edition. Baton Wicks, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-898573-81-4 .
• Men Against Everest Published 1955

E. Shipton, autobiography That untraveled world Charles Scribner and Sons (1969)

literature

• Peter Steele: Eric Shipton, Everest and Beyond The Mountaineers, Seattle / WA undated, ISBN 0-89886-659-6 (North America), first London 1998

Web links

• Everest unsung heroes - Eric Shipton, part 1
• Photos of Eric Shipton in the Pictute library of the Royal Geographical Society