The Sea and the Snow

In 1964, Warwick Deacock assembled a team of nine to climb Big Ben, the 9000-foot volcanic peak of Heard Island. The only way to get there was by sea, and the team hired H. W. Bill Tilman, a veteran mountaineer and sailor, to navigate them safely. This first-hand account, written by Philip Temple and accompanied by unpublished photographs by Warwick Deacock, details the expedition's success.

Format: Paperback / softback
Publication date: 05 August 2022
Publisher: Lodestar Books

HEARD ISLAND, an improbably remote speck in the far Southern Ocean, lies four thousand kilometers to the south-west of Australia - with Antarctica its nearest continent. By 1964, it had been the object of a number of expeditions, but none reaching the summit of its 9000-foot volcanic peak, Big Ben. In that year, Warwick Deacock resolved to rectify this omission and assembled a party of nine with impressive credentials embracing mountaineering, exploration, science, and medicine, plus his own organization and leadership skills as a former Major in the British Army.

But first, they had to get there. Heard had no airstrip and was on no steamer route; the only way was by sea in their own vessel. Approached from Australia, the island lay in the teeth of the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties. One name, only, came to mind as the skipper to navigate them safely to their destination and safely home - the veteran mountaineer turned high-latitude sailor H. W. Bill Tilman, already renowned for his sailing to climb expeditions to Patagonia, Greenland, and Arctic Canada, and the sub-Antarctic archipelagos of Crozet and Kerguelen, to the north-west of Heard Island. He readily signed on to Warwick Deacock's team of proven individuals and their well-found sailing vessel, Patanela.

In this first-hand account, as fresh today as on its first publication fifty years ago, Philip Temple invites us all on this superbly conducted, happy, and successful expedition, aided by many previously unpublished photographs by Warwick Deacock.

The Skipper - a man not free with his praise - described the enterprise as "a complete thing." Photographs, maps, drawings, and a wealth of other information bring this remarkable adventure to life, making it a must-read for anyone with an interest in exploration, adventure, and the wonders of our planet.

Dimension: 198 x 129 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781907206597