Download e-book for iPad: The K2 Man (and His Molluscs): The Extraordinary life of by Catherine Moorehead,Rob Burns,Rhoda Burns

one of the best mountaineer of his day,' claimed Kenneth Mason in his definitive climbing heritage, homestead of Snow. Haversham Godwin-Austen (1834-1923), from an old and engaging Surrey aristocratic kin with royal connections, not just stumbled on the 1st approach to the 'savage mountain', K2, yet went directly to be the 1st critical explorer of the Karakoram, Ladakh, Western Tibet, Bhutan, Northern Burma and Assam. He broke the Asiatic high-altitude hiking list 3 times, utilizing a 'garden hatchet' as an ice-axe, observed his assistant killed by way of headhunters and socialised with everybody from his 'coolies' to the Maharajah of Kashmir. again in England, he grew to become one of many UK's maximum typical Historians, a Darwinist collector between creditors of geological and ornithological specimens. His selection of freshwater molluscs varieties the root of all sleek technological know-how within the topic. And he grew to become one of many UK's maximum surveyors, overlaying over 22,000 sq. miles of latest territory, together with 23 new glaciers and a minimum of dozen first ascents of peaks over 5000m. Remarkably, he additionally chanced on time to color an unlimited portfolio of watercolours, together with the 1st shut sighting of K2, defined via the British Library as a 'national treasure'. (Several of those watercolours are illustrated during this book.) His own existence was once both fascinating: 3 marriages - to an Afghan landowner's daughter, an English socialite, then a civil servant's daughter 23 years more youthful than himself - was once complex by way of spiritual conversions from Anglicanism to Islam then to Buddhism. His powerful personality as a pupil at nice London associations equivalent to the normal heritage Museum continues to be the stuff of legend, whereas his financial disaster in later lifestyles required the promoting of the 'family pile', the tremendous, royally-furnished Shalford Park. and because of a younger indiscretion in Kashmir, he harboured a gloomy mystery which got here again to hang-out him close to the tip of his lengthy and vibrant lifestyles. this can be the 1st and accredited biography of a great guy. Godwin-Austen's inner most papers are being made public for the 1st time. They turn out that he was once one of many UK's maximum explorers, on a par with Sir Richard Burton, and surpassing the explorations of David Livingstone, Captain prepare dinner or Captain Scott. For mountaineers, scientists, scholars of biography and historians of the Raj and the nice video game, this biography deals new and and unique fabric - a 'must' for the explorer's bookshelf.