Himalayan reading

I read both of these quite a long time ago now & really enjoyed them both in different ways. A follow on from Swami Rama's book was "Walking with an Himalayan Master by Justin O'brien who was a disciple of Swami Rama, but it's more about time spent with Swami Rama in the U.S, there is a chapter about the Himalaya's & Nepal; http://www.amazon.com/Walking-Himala.../dp/0936663197

I really enjoyed Swami Tapovan's book. I had another small book by Swami Chinmayananda which i can't remember the title of now,which is based on His wanderings through the Himalaya's at a young age. I gave it to a Swamini who was visiting me in U.K. with her Guru who is a direct disciple of Swami Chinmayananda.

Another book on the same theme is "In the Lap of the Himalaya's" by Swami Akhananda of Ramakrishna Mission;
http://www.chennaimath.org/estore/in...-the-himalayas
KK

I have that book on my shelf,but it's years ago since i read it. Anything on/by Shipton & Tillman in the Himalaya's is real adventure stuff.

"Memoirs of a Mountaineer" by F.Spencer Chapman is one of my fave reads in this category; http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&k...l_1qs5tutzsp_b

KK,
Thanks for the links.

Hey, nice blog ji! You get about a bit, Bowness, Windemere & York are a couple of my regular haunts, right on my doorstep.KK

Dear Friends, I am looking for the title of a book on a experience of a european author who stayed with a sage in the himalayas. The sage is known by Swami Ashwini (to the best of my knowledge, I may be wrong too) who lives in a remote part of the himalayas. I read this book a long time back while doing my masters at Delhi University at South Campus Library. Few things I remember that the author requests for a permission to stay with the sage in his ashram. And the book very vividly describes that the sage asks the author to fetch a pitcher of water to water the plants. The author helps with the chore and then the sage says that she had become the part of the ashram as she just did one of the tasks of the ashram. Further the author asks at the end when she is about to leave the ashram for good, whether her learnings on truth and eternity will be valid in her own country which has a completely different culture, the sage replies that his teachings concern universal truth and has no geographical boundaries. Even in a planet other than earth these teachings will have the same significance.
I apologize in case some part of the narrative may not be accurate as it has been long since I read this book.

I would be extremely grateful if anyone who has gone through this book could let me know about the title. I really feel a strong urge to go through the book once again. I remember I used to hide this book in the library so that it does not get issued to some one else !!

Its really funny - Tillman had written another book, which is called The Ascent of Nanda Devi, which is easily available but Shipton-Tillman book is out of stock.

Nanda Devi: exploration and ascent is a collection consisting of two books --- Nanda Devi by Eric Shipton, and The Ascent of Nanda Devi by H. W. Tilman --- and a couple of short articles, together with an introduction by Charles Houston, who was a member of the 1936 expedition in which Tilman and Noel Odell reached the summit of the mountain. Shipton's book is included in his collection The six mountain-travel books, and Tilman's book in his collection The seven mountain-travel books; both these collections are available at Flipkart, which is where I bought them.

Raghu.

Perhaps you mean My trek through Uttarakhand by Swami Chinmayananda, published by the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, Bombay. Incidentally, I have read it, but didn't find it interesting. In general, I didn't enjoy the books on the Himalaya written by swamijis that I have read, namely the ones by Akhandananda, Chinmayananada, and Tapovanam.

Raghu.

Hi Raghu .. How did you find these books? ... what is your view - worth buying & reading?
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Very much so. I absolutely enjoyed Shipton's book on the discovery of the route to the base of Nanda Devi, and Tilman's on the expedition to its summit. In addition, I have read quite a bit of the Tilman collection, and especially enjoyed his accounts of travels in central Asia, and his experiences behind enemy lines in Albania during the second world war. I haven't yet had the time to read the books in Shipton's collection apart from Nanda Devi, but am looking forward to it.

These omnibus editions are quite attractive, and not unreasonably priced. At Flipkart again, I bought a collection by Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker, who went to the summits of Changabang and Dunagiri, and another by John Roskelley, who was in the 1976 US expedition to Nanda Devi, the one in which Nanda Devi Unsoeld died. The Roskelley collection is interesting alright if one ignores some of the author's opinions, but I particularly enjoyed the Boardman-Tasker collection.

Raghu.

Raghu - thanks for your quick and positive feedback.

I will probably order these from flipkart too. Am slowly building up my collection of Himalayan reads.

PS: ordered six and seven mountain travel books of shipton and tilman respectively.
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Thanks Rahu , is this the one u had ordered
http://www.flipkart.com/seven-mounta...er=from-search

Yes, that's the Tilman collection that I bought, and contains the book The ascent of Nanda Devi.

Raghu.

I got my copies of the two fat books (from flipkart) Shipton 6-mtn and Tilman 7-mtn a few days ago.

Have you any reading sequence to suggest (across these 2 volumes) nyraghu?

Because of my familiarity with the Tolma, Lata-Kharak, Dharansi, Dibrughetta region, I started with Shipton's Nanda Devi. Its a thrilling read so far. I just got past Mauvais Pas in the snowfall; up the Rishi Ganga gorge

PS: After reading an older post by nyraghu ... maybe start with S's ND and then T's Ascent of ND ?
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Hi KSB,

I guess that'd be the natural order of reading. Actually, I got the Tilman collection first because the Shipton volume wasn't available at Flipkart for a while. So I read the Ascent of Nanda Devi first. After that I read through the Tilman volume randomly. I got the Shipton volume much later when it became available, and read Nanda Devi immediately. I haven't yet read the other parts of the Tilman collection.

Raghu.