Sunlit Summits

THE SUNLIT SUMMIT. By Robin Lloyd-Jones. Pp. 358, 18 colour and 32 b/w illustrations, 2013. (Sandstone Press, Highland, Scotland, GBP 19.99).

Visiting England, sometime in the early 1990’s, I made it a point to visit Bill Murray. I had followed many of his trails in Garhwal. Having read his famous book The Scottish Himalayan Expedition 1950, I was keen to get my copy autographed. He invited me to visit his home, Lochwood, where he lived with his wife Anne. After giving detailed directions, like a true explorer would, he said, ‘I will put two chairs on the road. You simply will not be able proceed ahead and miss us’!

Soon, we reached the residence of this famous author-explorer. He lived in a beautiful cottage overlooking Loch Goil. Apart from this book on exploring Garhwal, Murray had written his classic book Mountaineering in Scotland. Originally written on rough toilet paper while in an Italian prison as a war prisoner, it was confiscated by the Gestapo. He rewrote it and it was published in 1947 and it continues to be a classic along with his other book of the same genre Undiscovered Scotland. These two books have inspired many mountaineers. Chris Bonington, in a 1983 review of Joe Tasker’s Savage Arena, wrote ‘There are very few mountaineering books that become both a representative expression of a certain era and, at the same time, inspirational bibles to younger climbers of that period. Two immensely important books for me in this context were W H Murray’s Mountaineering in Scotland and Hermann Buhl’s Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage.’

The Sunlit Summit is the second book on the life of Bill Murray. The first one, his autobiography The Evidence of Things Not Seen was a classic in its own way. The present book borrows from it, reflecting Murray as both a climber and a writer. In the Himalaya, he was the deputy leader of Eric Shipton’s Everest reconnaissance expedition of 1951, which discovered the eventual successful route to summit of Everest. However, with a change in leadership, of the 1953 Everest team from Shipton to John Hunt, he did not find a place in the final team. At 40, he was thought to be nearing the upper age limit that was a criterion for the team selection. Murray was always in the mould of the Bill Tilman and Eric Shipton style of exploration and climbing. His 1950 traverses and climbs in Garhwal have inspired many a mountaineer, like me, in India and elsewhere. In a four-month long trip they lived off the land, and explored many unknown valleys and peaks.

I, as a young person read his account with wonder. His exploration of the Girthi Gorge, brush with peaks like Bethartoli Himal, Uja Tirche, Lampak or Panch Chuli were landmarks. It inspired me to visit each of these places, in a leisurely manner and over decades. Also his style and concept were attractive enough to make Murray my hero. With close friends, I followed his trekking philosophy lifelong. Murray wrote We shared the beer and toasted ‘mountains’. Suddenly aware of the brotherhood that it implied, he added, ‘and “mountaineers”’. “Mountains give us some good things”, I suggested. “Such as friends worth having, battles worth fighting and beauty worth seeing”. P. 287. (originally quoted from Evidence of Things Not Seen, p. 80) Murray continued climbing in Scotland till late in his life. He was as much a writer as a climber and wrote about 25 books in the 83 years of his life. Later in his life he took interest in conservation of hills, possibly a debt he wanted to pay back to the mountains. He also held many positions in the mountaineering world as member, chairman of several organisations. He was vice president of the Alpine Club in 1971-72.

He retired from several positions in 1980s. In early 1990s there was a health scare for the couple; Murray was seriously ill for a while and Anne had a serious road accident. However, he started writing his autobiography The Evidence of Things Not Seen, which he could not complete. My brief visit to his home ended with a drink and he allowing me to take photo of him against backdrop of his vast library. I brought out my copy of his book, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition 1950, which I had carried from India, for his autograph. After signing it he gave me an envelope that contained the original dairy he had kept on that expedition and on which the book was based. This is a treasure I will cherish for life.

In the Foreword to the present book Robert Macfarlane sums up Murray’s passion accurately. p. XV, W.H.Murray was in life, as on the page, an essayist. Mountaineer, writer, explorer, philosopher, conservationist; hob-nailed aesthete, bank-clerk mystic, secular monk, intellectual knight-errant : he was all of these things, and he was them all adventurously, for the key criterion of adventure was, in his definition, ‘uncertainty of result’.

HARISH KAPADIA