Addicted to Adventure: Between Rocks and Cold Places
Author(s):
Shepton, Bob
Copyright: 2014, UK
Specifications: 1st, 8vo, pp.xx, 204, 28 color photos, 4 maps, wraps
Condition: new
Shepton is the modern H. W. Tilman. An ordained minister in his late 70s, Shepton spends much of his time sailing into the Arctic and leading small teams to make first ascents of inaccessible mountains. Opening with the disastrous fire that destroyed his yacht whilst he was ice-bound in Greenland, he then takes us back to his childhood growing up in Malaysia, his move back to England during the war after his father was shot by the Japanese, boarding school, the Royal Marines, and the church. Rather than settling down to a peaceful existence in a parish, Bob followed his instinct for adventure, sailing around the world with a group of school leavers, being dismasted off the Falklands, trapped in ice, and climbing mountains accessible only from iceberg-strewn water and with only sketchy maps available.
Shepton has sailed approximately 130,000 miles and made over a hundred first ascents. He received the YJA Apollo Yachtsman of the Year Award (2013), Piolet d'Or (2011), Blue Water Medal (1996), and the Tilman Medal (1998, 2009). It was my personal pleasure to recommend Bob for a Gore-Tex Shipton-Tilman Grant which helped him on his 2012 voyage to Greenland and through the Northwest Passage.