I'm one of Don's nephews. I read the book but was disappointed in that I don't feel that I know any more about Don than I did before I read it, except perhaps that the booze was a much worse problem for him than I had realised. It's a hard choice right enough, but I think people are ludicrously overestimating the contribution of recent generations. Owen Glynne Jones and perhaps Siegfried Herford both deserve far more consideration than they’re getting. Fowler – a great climber and no error, but how influential was he, in the sense of making a difference to the direction climbing took? I also wonder about John Dunne. What’s happened that wouldn’t have happened if he’d been around? Same with Fawcett, in a way. The best of his day and one of the best ever, of course, but I’m not sure that’s the question. I don’t know that Pete Crew didn’t have more influence than he gets credit for, also. Certainly in the way of introducing professionalism I’d say he was as influential as perhaps any climber before or since. Redhead was also very influential in keeping the flame alight – more so even than Dawes, perhaps. Don Whillans was a hilarious speaker, very funny, modest and authoritative. The most hilarious lecture I ever heard him present was the one about Roraima, including the famous line,

He was incredibly funny, incredibly brilliant, not -- in my opinion -- a tragic figure. I saw greatness. I mean, think of all he achieved, the successes run through memory, glimpses of deep winter with Haston on the Eiger Direct, or on various mountains of the Himalaya, such as Annapurna. In the early 1970s, he joined expeditions to the south-west face of Everest. But when Bonington came to select his successful team, in 1975, the 41-year-old Whillans was left behind. His leader, and Haston as well, believed he could no longer perform on the roof of the world. 'My team just didn't want him along, and that included Dougal,' Bonington says now. As well as his achievements on the peaks, Hamish has worked on a massive catalogue of films and documentaries. He was part of the BBC teams that made The Old Man of Hoy and The Matterhorn Centenary Climb and also worked on the film Climb to The Lost World which documented the 1973 climb of Roraima. His safety expertise was also in high demand in the movie industry.

Martin ‘Basher’ Atkinson, Andy Pollitt, Mark ‘Zippy’ Pretty, ‘Scottish’ Ben Masterson, Mark Leach, Craig Smith) There were a few times when Don Whillans did not get the last word even though they were rare. Dennis Gray tells how they during the fifties often climbed the cliffs near Glen Etive in the Highland of Scotland. On the way there they passed through the interior of a bay, and every time the discussion arose as to whether the water was salty or fresh. Finally Whillans decided to find out. He stepped out on an old pier and began to climb down to the water. Crash! - The wood was old and rotten and Whillans disappeared in the ice cold water. In full attire including heavy mountain boots, he surfaced after a while. "Me flat 'at - where is it?" he shouted. The wind had blown his beloved possession out of reach. "Is the water salty or fresh?" was the inevitable question from dry land. The British Mountaineering Council maintain a climbing hut near the Roaches in memory of Whillans. [4] References [ edit ] Chris Bonington first climbed with Whillans in 1958. He grew up in a one-parent family and, though well spoken, was more of an outsider than his contemporaries assumed. Lower down on the mountain, on 30 May, as the expedition was about to leave, Ian Clough was killed by a falling serac. Several members of the expedition rose to fame in Britain, and as a whole the expedition received international recognition in mountaineering circles on account of its innovative and extremely difficult nature.

Bonington recalls climbing with Whillans for a television documentary in the early 1980s. Whillans drank a bottle of whisky the night before and the next day Bonington had to pull his former mentor up a climb that he would have once found easy. 'It was good because we settled our differences without needing to say anything, but it was also immensely sad to see a man of such ability in his condition.' Later in 1957, Hamish joined ‘The Lahoul Winter Expedition’. The team would search for the yeti and felt that winter was the best time because yeti footprints would be clearly seen in the snow. Hamish found nothing in Lahoul so searched in the Kulu valley. He followed so many stories of sightings but without success. He spotted many bears on their hind legs, but he did not find a yeti. Hamish concluded: “Perhaps in one of the unfrequented valleys of Nepal or Tibet, where only the wild yak and the snow leopard roam, there may be a yeti, looking each day for the elusive human, the skin of which may bring him a fortune.” Haston, Dougal (1971). "Chapter 17: The Final Push". In Bonington, Chris (ed.). Annapurna South Face. Book Club Associates. pp.205–219. They took 18,000 feet (5,500m) of rope for fixing (they did not use their climbing rope), 40 cylinders of oxygen and six breathing sets. [20] The baggage was sent from London by sea with Whillans and Lambert flying to Bombay [note 1] to see to its unloading and transport to Pokhara by lorry. However, the ship was then delayed by about three weeks so Bonington arranged for Whillans and Lambert to travel to Kathmandu to reconnoitre the approach route instead of waiting at Bombay, and Clough would go to Bombay to deal with the baggage. [21] They took oxygen cylinders intending to use supplementary oxygen above about 22,500 feet (6,900m) but it was very little used for climbing and not at all above Camp VI. It was used, however, for people who had become ill. [22] Expedition [ edit ] March-in and Base Camp [ edit ] Approach route from Pokhara to Annapurna Base Camp Hamish met Chris Bonington in 1953. They shared first winter ascents of Agag’s Groove, Crowberry Ridge Direct and Raven’s Gully on Buachaille Etive Mor. During the same year, Hamish and John Cunningham set sail from New Zealand to attempt to make the first ascent of Everest. Much to their disappointment they found that they had been beaten to the summit by a team led by John Hunt. The two men set their sights on Pumori and ascended to above 22,000ft. In deteriorating weather conditions, the climbers became exhausted and had to retreat.The last fifty feet of the ice cliff was vertical, though there were good holds, and as they reached the northern side of the mountain, the wind dropped. They could see traces of army boot footprints, but the flag that had been left a week earlier by the army expedition had blown away. Haston took a ciné film of Whillans reaching the summit, and then they swapped places. From the top, which they reached at 14:30 and stayed for about 10 minutes, they could see the other two Annapurna summits, but nothing more. They had 150 feet (46m) of rope which, after they had abseiled down, was all there was left on the summit. By 17:00 they had managed the difficult descent to Camp VI. [92] [93] [94] [95] Chris Bonington’s grand plan was beginning to unravel. Upon leaving school at the age of eighteen National Service had seemed a logical step towards a full-time mountain career. Yet upon joining he began to drift. Pulled into the fold by the military he stepped away from his initial plan to join mountain rescue with Royal Air Force and instead joined Sandhurst to Curious how hard it can sometimes be to separate the influence of two climbers – Bancroft/Allen, Brown/Whillans, Moon/Moffatt.

Brown still lives in the Welsh village of Llanberis, below Snowdon and the crags of the Llanberis pass, where he and Whillans found such extreme self-expression through climbing. Good-humoured and engaging, Brown was a few years older than Whillans and was already something of a legend when the Salford man first emerged. Isserman, Maurice; Weaver, Stewart (2008). "New Frontiers, New Faces". Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes (1ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300115017. In Glen Coe more significant new routes followed in the 1960s including Crypt Route (V,6) and Pterodactyl (V,7). The big prize however was the first winter traverse of the Cuillin Ridge on Skye with Patey, Davie Crabb and Brian Robertson in 1965. Similar to Zero Gully, the Cuillin Ridge had assumed 'last great problem' status and had been attempted over a dozen times, including six by MacInnes. Their success, over three days in February, was a testament to MacInnes' determination and opportunism to drop everything and go for the route, when conditions were just right. On 16 March, Whillans, Thompson, and two Sherpas went ahead of the main parties to reconnoitre the route and to find a suitable place for the base camp. [27] A temporary location was found to be at the entrance to the Annapurna Sanctuary at the location of a previous base camp: that of the 1957 expedition to Machapuchare. [28] [29] forgotten name> [despite researching him for my 'entrepeurial management' course at business school] (for starting the project that led to the Foundry, arguably the precursor for all modern climbing walls)

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Whillans, Donald Desbrow". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/62488. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) When he arrived with the main baggage, Clough was supposed to stop at Hinko Cave overnight on 7 April, but due to confusing instructions, he continued on in a snowstorm with his entourage of 240 porters to temporary base camp some miles further on. Some porters had refused to go beyond Hinko Cave and the rest, overloaded and without adequate clothes and shoes in the bad weather, variously got into states of anger and collapse. However, now the main gear had arrived, it was possible to sort out shelter under cover for the night and provide medical help when necessary. [57] On this same day, Whillans and Haston had reached the Ice Ridge at a col where Camp III was to be established. They had to climb through deep snow in bad weather. In ten days, the expedition had got from the Sanctuary to half height on the face, although with the difficult climbing all to be done further ahead. They abseiled down to Camp II from where, next day, they started placing fixed ropes towards the col. [58]