Not entirely given over to mountain climbing, Snow on the Equator has chapters on Mr. Tilman's experiences as a coffee planter and on his 3,000 mile bicycle trip from Uganda to the French Cameroons. A British soldier, he won a farm in Kenya in a lottery after the War, ran it for ten years, with intermissions for mountain climbing, big game hunting and gold mining. As a coffee planter he made a classic pact with his partner ''that master and man should not both get drunk on the same day.''
But mountain climbing made his African years memorable. First was the great, squat, 'pudding-like' dome of Kilimanjaro, 19,710 feet, in Tanganyika, the highest mountain in Africa. Since the Germans built huts on it during the War, at 8,500 feet and at 11,500 feet, author Tilman says cavalierly that Kilimanjaro offers 'no climbing difficulties whatsoever.' The great jagged tower of Mount Kenya, 17.040 feet, buttressed with ridges and festooned with hanging glaciers, was a far tougher job. On the peak experienced climbers had violent attacks of vomiting, and on the descent Tilman fell 80 feet to a rock ledge, landed physically unhurt, but with his mind wandering.
The high point of his African mountain climbing was a six day ascent of the mysterious Ruwenzori Range in Uganda, anciently called the Mountains of the Moon, which had been climbed successfullyonly twice since Stanley discovered them in 1888. One of the eeriest regions known to man, the upper slopes of Ruwenzori 'comprise a world of their own — a weird country of moss, bog, rotting vegetation, and mud, on which flourish grotesque plants that seem to have survived from a past era . . . and make more desirable the fresh purity of the snows which lie beyond.'
Matter-of-fact in his approach, making no attempt to conjure up literary terrors, mountaineer Tilman pictures only two instances in which he was in genuine clanger, ascribes both to carelessness. Of a failure to reach a peak, he says, ''When a party fails to get to the top of a mountain, it is usual ... to have some picturesque excuse.' But in his case it was the prosaic and common reason: 'inability to go any further.'
Major Harold William 'Bill' Tilman, CBE, DSO, MC and Bar (1898–1977) was a mountaineer and explorer, famous for his Himalayan climbs and sailing voyages.
Tilman was born in 1898 in Wallasey in Cheshire, the son of a well to do sugar merchant and educated at Berkhamsted Boys school. At the age of 18, Tilman joined the British Army and fought in the First World War, including the Battle of the Somme, and was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery.
His climbing career, however, began with his acquaintance with Eric Shipton in Kenya, East Africa, where they were both coffee growers. Beginning with their joint traverse of Mount Kenya in 1929 and their ascents of Kilimanjaro and the fabled 'Mountains of the Moon' Ruwenzori, Shipton and Tilman formed one of the most famed partnerships in mountaineering history.
When it came time to leave Africa, Tilman was not content with merely flying home but rode a bicycle across the continent to the West Coast where he embarked for England.
He later volunteered for service in the Second World War, seeing action in North Africa, and on the beaches at Dunkirk. He then was dropped by parachute behind enemy lines to fight with Albanian and Italian partisans, was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his efforts, and the keys to the city of Belluno which he helped save from occupation and destruction.
Tilman was involved in two of the 1930s Mount Everest expeditions - participating in the 1935 reconnaissance expedition, and reaching 27,200 feet without oxygen as the expedition leader in 1938.
After penetrating the Nanda Devi sanctuary with Eric Shipton in 1934, Tilman went on to the first ascent of Nanda Devi with Noel Odell in 1936. During his extensive exploration of the areas of Langtang, Ganesh and Manang in 1949 he was the first to ascend Paldor, 5896 meters and found the pass named after him beyond Gangchempo.
Following his military career behind enemy lines in the Second World War, Tilman took up deep sea sailing. Sailing in deep seas on the cutter Mischief, which he purchased in 1954, and subsequently on his other pilot cutters 'Sea Breeze' and 'Baroque', Tilman voyaged to Arctic and Antarctic waters in search of new and uncharted mountains to climb.
Tilman disappeared during a sailing trip to climb Smith Island in the Antarctic in 1977. He had accompanied the youthful Simon Richardson and his crew aboard an old, converted steel tug. They made it successfully and without incident to Rio de Janeiro, but disappeared without trace on their way to the Falkland Islands. Tilman was almost 80 years of age.
He has been described by some as a self-indulgent risk taker impervious to the sensitivities of others; one who had little time for those who didn’t live up to his high standards and expectations; and he was even accused of disliking women.
In reality, these labels were grossly inaccurate, for he was in fact a very shy, private man who was self-effacing and hated publicity. He was a deep thinker, an avid reader of the classics, and although he never married, he adored his sister and two nieces with whom he lived when not on some distant shore.
Tilman had a great sense of humor, perhaps too subtle for many of his listeners. It was one of his greatest joys to laugh at himself, and see the funny side of life's little foibles. An example is his 'discovery' of Tilman's Disease, characterized as 'the inability to put one foot before the other'.
He wrote seven books about his mountain travels, and eight books on his years sailing to extreme climates. One of the last 'gentleman adventurers', Bill Tilman's stoic and courageous exploits have earned him a place of honor as one of the greatest in the pantheon of explorers.
