Saturday, July 6, 2013

Maurice Wilson ... soldier, mystic, mountaineer, and eccentric

I continue to thoroughly enjoy the novel, ABOVE ALL ELSE. My only quarrel thus far is her misuse of history, to convey a concept that is commonplace today, but unheard of in the early days of Everest.

The author has Maurice Wilson illicit climbing on Everest in between George's 1922 and 1924 attempts. Of course this quirky guy - who believed fasting and meditation would cure all the worlds ills as well as get him up Everest - did not fly his plane from Britain to India until 1933. Eric Shipton's expedition discovered his body and buried it in a crevasse.

The habit of leaving dead bodies sitting in the snow in Everest is a new one, and more a consequence of heavy traffic and guided expeditions. To have Sandy Irvine wanting to see Maurice's body, and to be hovering around the frozen corpse, would be a definite misreading of the ethos of climbers from that era.