Peter Gillman (born 1942) is a British writer and journalist specialising (but not exclusively) in mountaineering topics. Many of his books are co-written, mainly with his wife Leni Gillman.
Gillman attended Dulwich College (1953–61), [1] and University College Oxford (1961–64). [2] He was editor of The Isis Magazine at Oxford. [3]
He joined the Weekend Telegraph as a feature writer in 1965. [4] He subsequently spent fifteen years on the staff of the Sunday Times, including five years on the newspaper's Insight team. He became a freelance journalist in 1983 and has written for most British newspapers. [5]
With Dougal Haston he co-authored the book, Direttissima; the Eiger Assault (1967), also published under the title Direttissima, which told the story of the ascent of the Eiger North Face in which John Harlin II lost his life.
Peter and Leni Gillman's 2000 book, The Wildest Dream, is a biography of the Everest climber George Mallory, and won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature in that year. [6] It inspired the film of the same name, [7] on which Peter and Leni Gillman were historical consultants. [8]
Peter and Leni Gillman's 2015 book, Extreme Eiger, is an account of an ascent of the North Face of the Eiger in 1965, and won the Outdoor Book Award in the 2015 Awards for Excellence made by the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild. [9]
Books
George Herbert Leigh-Mallory was an English mountaineer who participated in the first three British Mount Everest expeditions in the early 1920s. He and Andrew Irvine, were last seen ascending near Everest's summit, during the 1924 expedition, sparking debate as to whether they reached it before they died.
The Eiger is a 3,967-metre (13,015 ft) mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mönch to the Jungfrau at 4,158 m (13,642 ft), constituting one of the most emblematic sights of the Swiss Alps. While the northern side of the mountain rises more than 3,000 m (10,000 ft) above the two valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, the southern side faces the large glaciers of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, the most glaciated region in the Alps. The most notable feature of the Eiger is its nearly 1,800-metre-high (5,900 ft) north face of rock and ice, named Eiger-Nordwand, Eigerwand or just Nordwand, which is the biggest north face in the Alps. This substantial face towers over the resort of Kleine Scheidegg at its base, on the eponymous pass connecting the two valleys.
Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CVO, CBE, DL is a British mountaineer.
Peter Boardman was an English mountaineer and author. He is best known for a series of bold and lightweight expeditions to the Himalayas, often in partnership with Joe Tasker, and for his contribution to mountain literature. Boardman and Tasker died on the North East Ridge of Mount Everest in 1982. The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature was established in their memory.
The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature is an annual prize of £3,000 awarded by the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust to an author or authors for "an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature". The prize was established in 1983 in memory of British climbers Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker, both of whom wrote books about their mountaineering expeditions, after their deaths on the northeast ridge of Mount Everest in 1982. It can be awarded for a piece of fiction or non-fiction, poetry or drama, although the work must have been written in English. The prize is announced at the annual Kendal Mountain Festival.
Duncan "Dougal" Curdy MacSporran Haston was a Scottish mountaineer noted for his exploits in the British Isles, Alps, and the Himalayas. From 1967 he was the director of the International School of Mountaineering at Leysin, Switzerland, a role he held until his death in an avalanche while skiing above Leysin.
Douglas Keith Scott was an English mountaineer and climbing author, noted for being on the team that made the first ascent of the south-west face of Mount Everest on 24 September 1975. In receiving one of mountaineering's highest honours, the Piolet d'Or Lifetime Achievement Award, his personal style and his climbs were described as "visionary".
Donald Desbrow Whillans was an English rock climber and mountaineer. He climbed with Joe Brown and Chris Bonington on many new routes, and was considered the technical equal of both.
Peter Habeler is an Austrian mountaineer. He was born in Mayrhofen, Austria. He developed an interest in mountain climbing at age six.
John Elvis Harlin II was an American alpinist and US Air Force pilot who was killed while making an ascent of the north face of the Eiger at age 30.
Joe Tasker was a British climber, active during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He died while climbing Mount Everest.
Nick Estcourt was a British climber killed on K2 by an avalanche on the West Ridge route.
The Three Pinnacles are a formation of steep rocks along the northeast ridge on Mount Everest. They were one of the longest unsolved challenges in high-level mountaineering, but have now been successfully climbed.
Norman Gunther Dyhrenfurth was a German-Swiss-American mountaineer and filmmaker. He was the leader of the successful American Mount Everest Expedition of 1963, which placed six climbers on the summit.
The 1975 British Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition was the first to successfully climb Mount Everest by ascending one of its faces. In the post-monsoon season Chris Bonington led the expedition that used rock climbing techniques to put fixed ropes up the face from the Western Cwm to just below the South Summit. A key aspect of the success of the climb was the scaling of the cliffs of the Rock Band at about 8,200 metres (27,000 ft) by Nick Estcourt and Tut Braithwaite.
Phanthog, also known as Phantog and Pan Duo, was a Tibetan mountaineer. She is known for being the first woman to summit Mount Everest via its North Face route, the first Chinese woman to summit Everest, and the second woman to reach the summit, after Junko Tabei.
Willy Angerer was an Austrian mountaineer. He was one of four mountaineers who died in the 1936 Eiger north face climbing disaster, along with Toni Kurz, Andreas Hinterstoisser and Eduard Rainer. At thirty-one Angerer was the oldest of the four climbers who died.
Peter Bohren was a Swiss mountain guide from Grindelwald.
Audrey Salkeld was an English mountaineer, historian, and author. She reviewed and documented the contents of the archives of the early expeditions to Everest, including researching George Mallory and the events behind his death. That lead to her involvement in several books relating to Everest including The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine and Last Climb.