The Villain: The Life of Don Whillans

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Bonington and Whillans met up on 27 March, and Whillans said he thought he and his Sherpas had seen a yeti and had photographed the footprints. More significantly, he had been able to identify a climbing route up the mountain's south face. [31] After the whole party had gathered at the temporary base camp on 29 March, an advance party, including Whillans, Haston and Burke, established a final base camp at 14,000 feet (4,300m), three miles from the foot of the face. [32] [33] [34] Estcourt used a theodolite to make accurate altitude measurements of various points on the face, because foreshortening makes estimation inaccurate. The porters returned to Pokhara from where many of them would help move up to Base Camp, the main baggage being carried from Bombay by the party led by Clough, Thompson, and Kent. Meanwhile, the lead climbers and Sherpas were left to ferry the advance baggage up to the final Base Camp. [35] The monsoon was due at about the end of May. [36] Climbing route [ edit ] Climbing route up South Face The Topham Brothers (Harold Ward 1857-1915; Edwin **; Alfred George Wilberforce Newton Tribe (1855-1928)

You will be missing out, because it is a brilliant book, and extremely fair (it refrains from delving too deeply into some of the darker aspects of Don's life, and avoids even mentioning some of the worst incidents). All the good aspects of Whillans, and particularly his climbing skills and mountaineering sense, are well depicted. It's also an extremely good resume of that whole period in British climbing history. Hamish died in his home in Glen Coe on 22 November. He was 90 years old and had led an extraordinary life. The word 'influential' is often used, but for Hamish, nothing could be more appropriate. From pioneering cutting edge first ascents in Scotland and the Greater Ranges, through development of mountain rescue and avalanche safety, inventing new ice tools and sharing mountain knowledge through his writing and guidebooks, Hamish MacInnes' influence continues to be both long lasting and profound. I loved Don. I never saw him be mean-spirited, though I did know he drank and had his frustrations. He was especially intolerant of people who overrated themselves or simply did not know what they were talking about. I respected that quality in him, although he could have tempered his opinions, certainly, at times. I don't think I ever saw him get wrankled with someone who didn't deserve it. 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. So there's a lot to like about him. But then there's the bad stuff. Propensity for violence, reputation around women, alcoholism etc. I think it's worth noting some of the bad stuff went beyond the "lovable rougue" categoryand tipped him into the "utter bastard"or even the "complete c***" categories, and I think it's for this reason he was never lauded or honored as much as his contemporaries.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. You have to be positive and aggressive to get up Don's routes. But, if you do crank yourself up to that pitch, then they cease to be particularly difficult. That's the adversarial nature of his climbs. You have to fight them.' Bear in mind also that both Joe Brown and Chris Bonington have praised the book as being extremely good in every way. We can speculate till the cows come home as to WHY Don might have felt insecure, and felt the need to adopt a confrontational stance to the world: genetics? being evacuated during the war? absent father? distant non-emotional parenting? macho tough culture? etc etc. Jim Perrin has had the luxury of having more evidence at his disposal to piece together a version of Don's persona that 'fits' his behaviour. All we can do is indulge in amateur speculation. Of course, no one is entitled to judge anyone else's life or make definitive statements as to how happy he was. However, Perrin (or anyone else) is entitled to their opinion that, given Don's talents as a mountaineer, he could have achieved even more; and, given the evidence of his behaviour to others, he did not SEEM to be a contented soul. A lot of stuff goes on round here (North Lakes) which is very much off the radar. There are many climbers close by, quite a few famous, some less so. A couple of years ago we had a Hesket Spiders lecture evening where there were a couple of talks about new routes, climbing in France, then Doug Scott gave an excellent talk about Don. He wanted to correct the impression that Don was (according to Perrin) "a villain". It was a generous, adulatory little talk, much enjoyed and quite touching. Clearly Don to those who really knew him was a top man, very kind, likeable, tough yes, but very fair. Doug was certainly very complimentary about Don. There are many Whillans jokes doing the rounds, one of the best being the World Cup joke when Whillans gave his response to Dyrenfurth's comments on "national sports" on the International Everest Expedition.

Boysen, Estcourt, Haston and Whillans worked together establishing Camp IV, but the situation at Camp III became critical after several attempts to supply it from Camp II had failed because of deep snow and avalanches. Eventually, an overnight carry was successful, and it generally seemed that snow conditions improved the higher one got up the mountain. [70]In 1955, aged 24, he and fellow climber George Band made history after scaling Kanchenjunga’s south-west face, one of the Himalayas’ most difficult peaks, and the third highest mountain in the world. In 1956, he made the first ascent of the west summit of the Muztagh Tower in the Karakoram mountain range. Re the televised ascents with Brown and Bonington, I too had the feeling that there was tension beneath the surface - on his side. My impression is that both Brown and Bonington were magnanimous towards him but he just wouldn't let stuff go. And, if you don't let stuff go, it eats away at you. Hamish MacInnes is truly a man of the mountains. He has dedicated his life to exploration and has used the immense knowledge he has gathered to improve both climbing and mountain rescue equipment. He is recognised around the world as an outstanding climber and as a highly respected authority on mountain rescue. It was also in the early eighties that Troll expanded into the Industrial safety market, which we revitalised. Our revolutionary 'RAT' and 'RAM' industrial harness designs, based on our comfortable, lightweight and high performance climbing harnesses, brought a breath of fresh air into an industry where cumbersome, heavy equipment predominated. Together with the Allp, the first controlled 'hands-off' descender, designed by our very own Dave Allport, our new approach to old industrial problems facilitated the change from traditional time consuming and often prohibitively expensive access methods, to what are now commonly used 'Rope Access' techniques. Troll were now setting the standards for industrial gear. In 1995 crag rat and competition climber Graham Desroy complete with flowery shirts, white flares and surfboards joined the Troll sales team. Evidently the thought of working with Graham was too much for the founders who swiftly retired after 30 years in the hot seat. Alan is a keen sailor and now spends much of his time on his beloved boat. Paul is sill actively involved in the industry and still sits on the relevant BMC and European Standards Committees. Tony and his long time partner Di Taylor, then a member of Troll's design team, continue to spend their time exploring remote areas of the world. In 1999 Tony received a Geographical Award on behalf of Troll from the Royal Geographical Society for the design and supply of expedition equipment.