Nice article, thanks
I read the book a couple of times years ago (I owned a copy but have somehow lost it). I highly recommend it
Second that, great book
As are his other books - Newby really was good at finding ways to suffer
I could have sworn they got taken up Ivy Sepulchre by way of preparation. What am I remembering, I wonder?
jcm
You have to laugh, though (not at them, but with pleasure and admiration at the whole thing) about seconding Spiral Stairs (VD) as training for a 5809 metre peak in Afghanistan
The guy was quite nerveless. I've just finished his The Last Grain Race and as a teen he was shinning up to the top of these masts at sea in gale force winds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshulu#/media/File:Moshulu.jpg
> I could have sworn they got taken up Ivy Sepulchre by way of preparation. What am I remembering, I wonder?
My copy of A Short Walk is buried in a box somewhere but that's what Wikipedia says so you must be correct.
In which case, who were the PyG waitresses? Leading Ivy Sepulchre (E1 5b) in 1956 - one of the hardest routes in Wales at the time - was a jolly good effort as Newby might have said.
> The guy was quite nerveless. I've just finished his The Last Grain Race and as a teen he was shinning up to the top of these masts at sea in gale force winds.
The Last Grain Race - I'd forgotten that - thanks for the reminder
Loved the bit where they ran into Wilfred Thessiger in the middle of nowhere and found themselves roundly mocked
Is that the bit where he calls them a couple of pansies? I’d forgotten that was ASWITHK.
jcm
> Is that the bit where he calls them a couple of pansies? I’d forgotten that was ASWITHK.
> jcm
Yep, due to them kipping on air mattresses I think (quite a few years since I read It).
typo ... bmc exped was 2012 not 2021 which would have been more exciting just getting there !
> My copy of A Short Walk is buried in a box somewhere but that's what Wikipedia says so you must be correct.
> In which case, who were the PyG waitresses? Leading Ivy Sepulchre (E1 5b) in 1956 - one of the hardest routes in Wales at the time - was a jolly good effort as Newby might have said.
I've had a look to check and I think wikipedia is wrong - it was Spiral Stairs, but when they got there another party was already on it and the waitresses offered / joked / threatened to take them up Ivy Sepulchre instead (to Newby's horror).
The book doesn't then state explicitly which one they actually did (hence the confusion) but it seems clear enough to me it was Spiral Stairs after waiting for the other team.
I must have read this book shortly after it was first published, and enjoyed it immensely. It is no surprise that it has become a classic of travel literature.
Oh and Ivy Sep had a peg for aid, certainly when I repeated it in the 60s. Standard HVS.
I remember finding the first part highly enjoyable but for me it sort of tailed off with the account of the climb, notwithstanding the final encounter with Thesiger after. Must read it again though.
On a similar (but earlier) note, Mission to Tashkent is interesting for an adventure in the Great Game
> Oh and Ivy Sep had a peg for aid, certainly when I repeated it in the 60s. Standard HVS.
Two pegs, actually, in the 60s (as per Roscoe guidebook), as I did it in 1969. I repeated it in 1983 at E1 5b - pegs long since gone - and it was about 10 times better: a thrilling dynamic move round the overhang using an undercut.