Land of Tempest

Shipton has collected descriptions of no less than four of his individual expeditions to the area he describes as the Patagonian Mountains, which confused me at first as I think of Patagonia as the broad expanse between those mountains and the east coast of South America (however he would, of course, know more than me). The fifth expedition was further south in Tierra del Fuego.

The expeditions were undertaken between 1952 and 1962, and there were many who participated on these, some more than one. They varied in length, but each was substantive - eg at least 6 or 8 weeks, and perhaps as long as four months. He approached some of these expeditions from the Argentine side, and others from the Chilean side, which made the logistics and preparation all the more interesting and avoiding some inevitable sameness if all departures were from the one place.

To finance these Shipton arranged to collect zoological or botanical samples for various museums or the like, or obtained grants and sponsorship. Each was successful in achieving at least some of its outcomes, although in mountaineering reaching a summit in a set timeframe can never be relied on, and this was proven out at times.

I enjoyed Shipton's writing style. He is not one to shirk from his errors of judgement, nor to dwell too long on a mistake. He records the poor decisions and moves on to making the best efforts going forward. His writing style reminds me of his climbing mate HW Tilman (who doesn't feature in this book).

Thankfully for me, Shipton has plenty of other mountaineering books for me to work away on. I enjoyed this one plenty.

4 stars.