WILLIAM DAMPIER

William Dampier was a West country lad, who was born in the year of 1651 in the Somerset village of East Coker, 

Southern England, and died in the year 1715. He could easily have been dismissed as a simply a brigand, a thief of the seaways, and although his life was often that of a Privateer or at times Pirate he cannot easily be described in such a simple manner.

He started his early life as did so many young men of his time, shipping out to the colonies for hope of a better life.  Dampier came from a simple family of tenant farmers, but his father died when he was only seven years old and his mother some years later when he was fifteen.

He was lucky though, to have received a good education and this was to stand him well throughout his lifetime.

So as a young man he went to sea, voyaging to Newfoundland twice, France, then the East Indies via the Cape. At the age of twenty one, he joined the Royal Navy and served aboard the Royal Prince, seeing action for the first, but not last time in his colorful life.

Then shipping aboard the sailing ship Content before the mast, that is as a simple seaman, he made passage to Jamaica, where through contacts from his home village, he was able to secure employment as a free man on a sugar plantation. (indentured servitude was at that time a more common form of finding your way to the new worlds)

So in 1674 Dampier found himself ashore as a plantation hand, this lasted less than a year before differences with his employers again drove him to sea and this time to the bay of Campeachy (Campeche today) West of the Yucatan.

Here he laid the foundation for the career which was to mark him for the rest of his life, that of the Buccaneer.

Although the word Buccaneer instantly conjures the image of the swashbuckling pirate, the truth of its origins are laid in more simple terms, that of the logwooders and meat curers of the bay, they cut the precious wood to send back to Europe to make furniture and dyes, which commanded very high prices at that time.

The wild cattle which abounded in the lowland forests were hunted, and their meat cured and dried to sell for ships provisions, and the hides were sold in the markets of the Caribbean and Europe.

This was a hard simple life and it attracted free and desperate spirits alike, alcohol was consumed in vast quantity and the binges were common.

Here Dampier curiosity and intelligence becomes apparent, he would keep very detailed notes on all manner of things from the living conditions of his fellow men through to the natural world, the lands, prevailing weather and sea conditions and the indigenous populations.

His description of the storm which drove him finally from the Campeachy was that of a perfect hurricane with the classic eye passing overhead, many were drowned and it practically destitute Dampier himself, he was one of the first to describe this meteorological phenomenon with accuracy.

He kept detailed notes on animals such as the crocodile the armadillo, birds, monkeys and he was one of the first men of his times to do this, later observers following his manner of describing the wonders of the natural world in terms that laymen could both understand and connect to.

Further he continued to collect notes throughout his life, observations which laid the foundations of the charts of the wind and currents of the world, his observations of the animals of the Galapagos Islands contributed to Darwin’s theory of evolution, and his curiosity led him to detail all aspects of the natural world that he encountered.

In the course of his lifetime he participated in attacks on many ships, a failed attempt on the town of Panama, another failed attempt on Guayaquil, which in a later expedition of which he took part they were able to subdue. He made three complete voyages around the world in small wooden ships, he was the first man to achieve this distinction,  A master navigator and at times Captain, he sailed with Captain Edward Davis, Captain Bartholomew Sharp, and Captain Charles Swan. amongst other notable pirates and privateers of the day.

He had a fascination with Spanish gold and at one time they took the mine of Santa Maria, now Cana in Darien after marching through the jungle and enduring unimaginable hardships, little gold was found because the produce of the mine some 300 pounds of the yellow metal had been shipped off to Panama only a few days earlier.

On later expeditions he explored the West Coast of Australia and was one of the first explorers to map part of that continent, almost a hundred years before Cook was to continue with that Cartography.

They explored Shark bay, naming it for the abundance of that fearsome fish, he mapped modern day Broome and the Kimberly coastal regions, making detailed observations all the while on plants, the Aborigines, the land itself, currents, weather and shoals.

They explored the wild coasts of what was then named New Guinea and now called Papua New Guinea, navigating amongst the reefs and islands and where any navigational failings would probably not have been survivable.

He was put ashore along with some fellow crew in the Nicobar islands at one point after differences with his Captain, this resulted in a near fatal open canoe voyage to Sumatra and the town of Banda Aceh, they had endured a storm on the crossing and none aboard the canoe thought they would survive, he was to fall sick afterwards and took many months to recover. 

He and his crew survived the sinking of the British Naval vessel Roebuck at Ascension island and also his subsequent court marshaling.  

Many geographical locations in the world still today bear the mans name, he influenced contemporary literature and it has been suggested he provided the inspiration for the Caledonian colonization of Darien that went so awry.

At 64 years of age he spent his last breath, dying in England, having passed a life of exploration and adventure that today we can only dream of, he was a man of whom it could be said “he did not sleepwalk through life”.

There are plenty of scources on Dampiers life a good book to read on the subject is                                                                                                                     A Pirate of Exquisite Mind by Diana and Michael Preston.

 

ERIC SHIPTON

When I first read about Eric Shipton I had a limited experience of mountain travel and can still remember clearly the images that he conjured in my mind with descriptions of climbing and exploration in Kenya with Bill Tillman this led to even more intense exploration of the Himalayas and the Karakoram. An early attempt on Everest from Tibet which was very nearly successful and later the 1951 reconnaissance of the mountain on the Nepalese side for the successful British Everest expedition in 1953, on which sherpa Tensing and Sir Edmund Hillary reached the summit.
Can you imagine what it must have been like back in those days, the canvas was unpainted, the maps were often just blank sheets, the most intense mountain terrain on the planet was largely unexplored and the peaks untrammelled, only needing the early explorers to open the way.
Eric Shipton, Bill Tillman, Frank Smythe, Charles Evans, Tom Bourdillon, Sir Edmund Hillary were some of the men that had the tough characters as to be able to match the terrain, and the accounts they wrote are a timeless inspiration.
I don’t think that Shipton saw things as Black and white as reaching the summit as being the real reason to undertake such endeavours, it was far deeper than that, exploration is something which engages all of your senses with only the intensity changing, standing on the summit of a peak gives a fleeting sense of accomplishment but the whole undertaking is far more powerful and pretty soon the mountain top is a whole lot less important than just being in the mountains themselves and having the terrain unfold before you, with that intense feeling of privilege of being the person or group to be there at that exact place and time in history, something that no amount of money can buy, it just simply something that you have to earn.
Shipton lost out on the glory of “conquering” Everest, the British organisers of the successful 1953 expedition removed him from the leadership position in favour of Sir John Hunt, but the groundwork for the success was laid by Shipton’s small uncomplicated expedition style exploration, which concluded that a feasible route was possible via the Khumba Icefall, Western Cwm and South Col. Unfortunately he seemed unable to translate his style of climbing into the military siege like tactics, which in the end turned out to be the key to reaching the top.
For me the mountains and wild places of our planet are difficult to describe without a certain spiritual element to them, I am sure Shipton would have agreed with this and it abhorred him to flood such places with men, equipment and frankly the political machinations that such an operation would have entailed.
Today for example I feel that the Mount Everest gods are disrespected due to the hundreds of tons of garbage and equipment left behind on the mountain slopes, this is something that does not translate well to our modern way of thinking, but I feel Shipton would have well understood.

“The pleasure that exists in mountains is greater than that of animate beings,
For they feel no heat, nor cold, nor pain, nor anger, nor fear, nor pleasure.
We three gods as mountains will reside in the earth for the benefit of mankind.”
― Eric Shipton, Nanda Devi

“Return to civilisation was hard, but, in the sanctuary of the Blessed Goddess we had found the lasting peace which is the reward of those who seek to know high mountain places.”
― Eric Shipton, Nanda Devi

As a member of the 1933 failed Everest attempt, which approached the mountain through Tibet (Nepal was at that time off limits). He was forced turn back from camp six after becoming ill (probably from altitude sickness), leaving Frank Smythe to go on alone and reach an altitude of 28,120 feet, less than a thousand feet from the summit, this must have been a bitter pill to swallow indeed.
In 1934 with Bill Tilman and three sherpas they were able to to ascend the gorge of the Rishi Ganga river and enter the inner basin of the Nanda Devi, the expedition was carried out on an absolute shoestring, with the minimum of food and equipment and relying on their ability to live off the land. On a later expedition in 1936 Using this experience, Bill with Noel Odell were able to ascend the peak, then the highest summit reached by man up to that time (though not the highest point reached as previously explained). This was considered to be one of the greatest feats of mountaineering, the record stood until 1950.
Having been passed over on the 53 everest expedition his star waned somewhat, and the accolades went to other men.
Shipton went on to travel and explore further in the Karakoram, Patagonia, and Alaska and for many mountaineers and adventurers he remains an Explorers explorer, having done so much and of which we could only dream of emulating.
You can read about his incredibly full life in the seven mountain travel books he wrote which are timeless classics:
Nanda Devi (1936)
Blank Upon The Map (1936)
Upon That Mountain (1943)
Mountains of Tartary (1951)
The mount Everest reconnaissance Expedition (1952)
Land of Tempest (1963)
That Untravelled World (1973)

 

 

BILL TILMAN

BILL TILLMAN

MAJOR BILL TILLMAN MC WITH BAR AND DSO
Much has been written about the life of Harold William ¨Bill ¨ Tillman and with good reason. Bill was an explorer, writer, decorated soldier of two world wars, accomplished mountaineer and high latitude sailor and a man with a character of steel.
Born in Wallasey Cheshire, England his parents were of money and he attended a private collage, the Berkhamstead boys school, But that did not make him choose a life of ease in fact far from it.
The first world war had been going for two years and bill was now 18 years old when he was commissioned into the field artillery, where he fought from 1916 to the end of Hostilities in 1919, twice decorated in 1917 he won the MC and the bar to the MC later in the same year, he fought on the Western front including the battle of the somme,
When the war ended he passed only only a few months in England before making his way by cargo vessel to Kenya in British Equatorial Africa as it was then known, having drawn a square mile of land in a servicemen’s lottery.
He spent the next ten years of his life carving a coffee plantation from the bush and it was not until he met with Eric Shipton, also a coffee grower at that time, that he began his climbing career for which he was best known.
Together they made the first traverse of mount Kenya, which they described as one of their hardest and most technical climbs, mount Kilimanjaro soon followed and for me one of the most compelling explorations that of the Mountains of the moon or Ruwenzori the source of the river Nile.
Shipton and Tillman describe a lost world of huge ferns, giant lobelia and groundsel which seem like strange prehistoric plant species, ceaseless rain, and temperate rainforest in the high glaciated mountains shrouded in mist, all with the romantic name of the mountains of the moon which are now named The Ruwenzori, rising to 5100 meters of altitude.
So began one of the most lasting and successful of mountaineering partnerships, and it was not long before they both had set their sights onto bigger things.
Tilman sold his farm, dabbled for a while at gold prospecting and not striking it rich bought a bicycle for some six pounds sterling and departed Africa – after having pedaling across the continent, a short jaunt of some three thousand miles or so to the west coast, back when it was not quite as civilized as it is today.
In 1934 Bill Tilman with Eric Shipton found their way to India and the peaks of the border between that country and Nepal, undertaking an expedition which penetrated through to the inner sanctuary of the sacred Nanda Devi mountain range, Then the highest peak of the British Empire, Nanda Devi is ringed by high mountains of technical difficulty, this provided a natural defense to the peak, which had to be breached before the ascent could be contemplated,

Bill and Eric managed to pull off this undertaking by ascending the Ganga river Gorge despite the large volume of water from the snowmelt, a feat which had eluded many prior expeditions, they managing this using three sherpas and on an absolute shoestring budget, at the most difficult section of the gorge they took some nine days to cover only four miles.
Unfortunately they were able to spend only a short time exploring the inner sanctuary before the monsoon broke and forced their retreat.
The full cost of the expedition had only been some 287 pounds sterling and had engaged only a handful of sherpas and porters, this was so completely opposed to set thinking of large exploration expeditions, more the custom of that period for exploration and high altitude mountain ascents.
1935 the lure of Everest took over, Tillman and Shipton took charge of the official sounding British Mount Everest reconnaissance Expedition, this took them away from a Nanda Devi summit attempt in the cause of loftier objectives.
The reconnaissance expedition was a great success, but not for Tilman, Unfortunately he did not fare so well on the Everest slopes, Becoming ill with altitude sickness above 20,000 feet and for this reason was not invited on the 1936 summit attempt.
This though turned out as a blessing in disguise, as the ever determined man Joined an American alpine style expedition with their sights set originally on Kanchenjunga, a peak of some 28,169 feet or 8586 meters altitude. As permission was denied them the party of five including Tillman refocused on the aforementioned Nanda Devi.
The expedition did not start out well, due to the sacred nature of the mountain, they had trouble getting the porters to shoulder the loads the whole way into the sanctuary, their sherpas became ill and had to drop out, one of them dying as a result, this meant the expedition was completely lightweight and the final approaches to the mountain were done without the local help.
Despite these setbacks and further difficulties due to the weather and technical problems encountered on the ascent, including frostbite, The Mountain was climbed and became the highest peak ascended 25,640 feet or 7815 meters up until to that time, a record which stood until 1950 when Annapurna was climbed.
The 1936 Everest expedition to ascend the mountain was not a success and so another attempt was organised in 1938, this time Bill Tilman was in charge, alongside him was Eric Shipton and four others making a total of six climbers in all along with a number of Sherpas.
Interestingly the 20 year old Tenzing Norgay participated, whom of course went on to summit the mountain with Ed Hillary in 1953.
This was a low key affair compared to the 1936 expedition, as large funding had not been raised, Britain was looking toward the darkening clouds of the European political situation and was in a period of austerity, as a result it was deemed extravagant to be mounting a large scale frivolous expedition to the mountain.
The ascent was to be from the Tibetan side via the Ronbuk glacier on the North side of Everest.
Initially things went well and they arrived early at the mountain, conditions were extremely cold which caused some severe setbacks, Then the monsoon broke three weeks early making conditions even more precarious.
They were able to reach 27,200 feet or 8300 meters and establish camp four at this altitude but beyond that point the weather and snow conditions were atrocious and little progress was made.
As in all exploration the weather tends to have the last say and so the expedition was abandoned, the climbers withdrew, but they had shown that the smaller expedition approach with veteran climbers was viable, even on the tallest mountain on earth.
This was to be the last attempt on Everest from the Tibetan side for some time and of course with the second world war intervening no further assaults were made on the mountain until the post war expeditions which were undertaken from Nepal.
Tilmans record during the second world war was outstanding, he served as a gunner in the North Africa campaigns, in Iran and and Iraq He was also at Dunkirk, later being chosen for special duty in 1943.
He was parachuted into Albania to work with the partisans, a year later found him parachuting into North Italy where he took part in action which freed Belluno gaining him the award of the keys to the city from the grateful authorities.

During his fighting in the Balkans and Italy he worked constantly behind enemy lines, the partisans that he was working with were relentlessly hunted and reprisals were brutal.
After the war he explored in Afghanistan, where he was detained by authorities for some time, the Karakoram, the Pamirs and in 1952 he was to be found reconnoitering the South side of Everest for the 1953 successful expedition.
Tilman was now in his fifties and for any man he had led a tough action filled life, the high mountains of central Asia were now getting too much for his body even though his mind could still write the checks, it would have been understandable that he would hang up his boots and retire to the fireside.
Tilman though had other ideas, in 1954 he bought the Bristol pilot cutter Mischief which had been built in 1906. These pilot cutters were tough wooden Vessel vessels built for the Bristol channel, where strong tidal currents often run against South westerly gales and produce ferocious seas, they are not the most elegant of boats but rather the toughest of small craft perhaps the Mischief was a little like her new owner.

Tilman was to combine ocean passage making in high latitudes with first ascents of far flung mountains in such places as Crozet islands, Chilean Patagonia, the south shetlands, Kerguelen island, in the southern ocean, South America and even a circumnavigation of Africa.
He also made many voyages to the Arctic, Iceland Greenland, Baffin Island and Jan Mayen where Mischief was finally lost, he went on to own two further Pilot Cutters the Sea Breeze and the Baroque and sailing thousands and thousands of nautical sea miles and making numerous first ascents.
He was lost at sea in his eightieth year when the Vessel En Avant disappeared with all hands whilst on passage to climb Smith Island of the South Shetlands in the Southern Ocean.

The Expedition had been led by Simon Richardson whom was also the Skipper of the En Avant when she disappeared shortly after leaving Rio De Janeiro en route to the Falklands.
And so ended the remarkable path this explorer had cut through life, he left for future generations his accounts of his exploits which leave such an incredible example of what can be achieved with sheer willpower.
THE SEVEN MOUNTAIN TRAVEL BOOKS, are a compilation of his books about his climbing and mountain experiences, from the first world war through to the end of his Himalayan explorations.
THE EIGHT MOUNTAIN EXPLORATION BOOKS compile his books of voyaging and mountaineering under sail.
These have been combined into two volumes which are still in print today, they make an impressive account of the mans full life, and will continue to inspire anyone whom reads them for much time to come.
Although the Loss of the vessel En Avant and its crew was a sad affair, it was a fitting end for the old warrior Tilman, as an explorer he got one of the final ultimate accolades: They will never find his body.
.

JIMMIE ANGEL

If there was ever a man whom was a walking film script it was Jimmie Angel, the words larger than life were written for him, this native of Missouri spent his life in the far flung corners of the world, as a pilot during the heyday of aviation from 1914 through to the 1950s.
Born in the American Mid West near Cedar Valley Missouri in 1899 where he lived until 15 years of age, but finding that life was just too good to miss, he ran away from home and made his way to Canada where he was able able to join the Royal Canadian Flying Corps.
It is difficult to get an exact account of this colorful mans life and it is assumed that some of the legends of the him are exaggerated or outright false, but I suspect that the stories have a lot of truth to them, to have led the flying career that he had throughout the wild times of the early twenties and thirties, he would have amassed some very special experiences.
He always told people that he taught himself to fly, he was supposed to have been only cleaning the hanger and not sitting inside the aircraft where his hands just happened to wander to the controls and from that point on his life really got underway, he was able to convince the corps he was more useful as a pilot than a sweeper.
He found himself pretty quickly in England and the great war flying in France, where only a fraction of the WW l pilots piloting their cloth and wooden planes went on to survive, so dangerous was the situation.
he told people that he had downed several German aircraft throughout the war and two observation balloons.
After the Hostilities he made his way to South Africa and was able to join up with another aviator Joel Ince and they spent some time in South East Asia. Jimmy then went on to sign a contract with The Chinese Government and found himself flying for a Chinese Warlord, where in his own words he dropped bombs on bandits in Kansu Province. Flying from an extremely remote airfield with a fleet of some five aircraft most of which were unserviceable for the majority of the time, the place bordered the Gobi desert and was generally devoid of the niceties of life.
This all lead to exploration for gold in Tibet, where they got robbed and leaving Jimmie a lifelong obsession with the lustrous metal. They found themselves back in china again where the whole escapade ended when the now tired of being bombed bandits destroyed the airfield, destroying all the aircraft and killed his partner along with other unlucky personal.
He went on to fly for a barn storming company throughout the states making his living doing stunts to awe the aviation hungry crowds, he tested new planes for companies and even flew for Howard Hughes making films for Hollywood.
In the early twenties he began to fly south of the North American border, flying in remote regions of Mexico, And South and Central America, often for Mining exploration companies and Oil Companies in Places like Venezuela, where the vast oil deposits of  the Maracaibo basin brought a huge demand for a man of his skills.
He remained south of the border for the majority of the rest of his life and it suited him, satisfying the call of the wild within.
It was whilst in a bar in Panama that he met with a Mining Geologist of United States origin, and over the Liquor it was agreed that Jimmie would fly McCracken as he was known for the tidy sum of $5000 dollars to explore the unknown of the Great Venezuelan Sabana, or more specifically to a location that McCracken knew of.
The story that Jimmie went on to tell to anyone whom would listen for the rest of his life, was that they flew into the wild south east of the Venezuela, into the Sabana Grande and there on the top of a great table mountain or Tepui they were able to land. From a river on the mesa they were able to extract pounds of alluvial gold which were flown out successfully.
McCracken would not return due to the difficult political situation of the country and Jimmy was never able to pinpoint the river again.
This colorful story was believed by many, including many of his family members, the Sabana Grande is immense and even to this day mysterious, back in the thirties it was quite simply unknown and awe inspiring to westerners and probably more was known of the moons surface.
Jimmie went on flying throughout the Americas, crashing in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico, barnstorming and finally getting married to a lady by the name of Virginia Martin whom was  a fellow barnstormer and wing walker, at one stage he flew from California to Cape horn and back a journey of some 25,000 miles in a small bi plane.
They went on to set up a small aviation company in Mexico flying from smaller towns to the larger commercial destinations, this was to bring a greater financial stability to the Angels.
The Sabana Grande though exerted its tremendous pull on Jimmie and he was not a man whom was able to resist for ever, so in the early 1930s he was able to team up with a mining Engineer by the name of DH Curry and the Santa Ana mining company of Arizona, whom invested some $25,000 dollars in the partnership to search for the golden river of the mesa.
If things have not been so interesting up till now this is where the story picks up, on one of his first flights into the Great Sabana Grande for the mining company, flying solo he sighted what he would go on to describe as ¨A mile high waterfall”  flowing from the tabletop of a great mountain, and into a great canyon.

It might be worth stopping and just pausing a while to just imagine what that first view from the cockpit of his small frail aircraft must have been like, one of the greatest natural wonders of the planet. The very remote situation in which he found himself, the immense canyon which he had just flown into, with the jungle stretching away to the horizon and there tumbling from the heights of the Mesa, with the winds pushing its skirts upwards, creating rainbows in the sunlight,  was The great rain swelled falls
Few men could count themselves so lucky to have had such a privilege as this moment, it is what defines exploration, paying for the long hours of drudgery to be able to find oneself before such a life changing experience.

For some months no one would even believe Jimmy, it was just another of his crazy stories, the river of gold, flying for warlords, mile high waterfalls, they did not even believe the meseta existed Auyan – Tepui or the Devils House as it was called in the local Indian dialect, after all it did not even appear on maps.
The Falls were finally confirmed by Durand Hall and L R Dennison when Angel flew them into the wide devils canyon to see for themselves the great falls of Auyan Tepui.
Unfortunately around this time it was not only Jimmy that was heading South but his marriage to Virginia as well, tired of his constant romantic notions of waterfalls, and gold she left him in late 1933.
Jimmy met another woman a year or so later by the name of Marie
This of course was not enough for Jimmie after all there was the gold to be recovered from the river of the tabletop mountain, an expedition to land and prospect was organized by himself and Marie to search for the riches.
They flew into the Sabana Grande and explored for a final expedition in 1937 which was to land on top of the devils mountain.

With the savvy planning of Marie disaster was averted when their plane became bogged down in deep mud, close to the river on the mountain top. The world had assumed that the plane and all the occupants were lost and everyone had perished, so it was a huge surprise when they emerged after great difficulties some 11 days later.

Unfortunately for Jimmie there was no gold to be found, but you can still see his plane on display at the airport at Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela. The authorities recovered it using a helicopter some years later.

Jimmie went on flying and never gave up on his dreams of golden rivers and lost cities of South America a man of huge energy and imagination.
Sadly he was involved in an accident when the load shifted inside his plane at David Airport in the Province of Chiriqui, Panama, strangely only half a mile from where I am writing this account, he never recovered from his neck and head injuries and died at Gorgas Hospital in Panama city on the 8th of December of 1956.
Who knows the full truth of jimmie Angels accounts of his life, and does it really matter, he left a lasting legacy with the discovery for our world of the kilometer high falls. Kerepakupai Meru or -Waterfall of the deepest place – as it was known to the Indigenous Indians, whom surely knew of its existence for Generations.
Now situated in the Canaima National park and destination for thousands of tourists annually, it still awes those whom see it. Collectively it is called Angel Falls or Salto Angel in Spanish named after that intrepid explorer and adventurer, a man who’s soul was a big as the Sabana grande itself.