NANDA DEVI (with Prospectus); With a Foreward by Hugh Rutledge

London, England: Hodder and Stoughton, Limited, 1936. FIRST EDITION (NAP). Hardcover. Very Good /Good. Octavo, 5.75 x 8.9 in., pp. xvi + 310. Illustrated with twenty-seven full-page photographs with captioned tissue guards. Maps and drawings by Bip Pares. Black cloth boards with light sky-blue title to cover and spine. Light rubbing to extremities. Two small dents to bottom edge of cover. Age-toning to front endpaper map. Rubbing to dustjacket edges. Small chips to three corners and top of rear dustjacket. Light spotting to dustjacket flaps and smudging to rear panel. Protected in mylar. Laid in: original four-page 1936 Prospectus and order form, Nanda Devi, at 25,643 feet, is the second-highest mountain in India, after Kangchenjunga, and the highest located entirely within the country.

The ascent of Nanda Devi necessitated fifty years of arduous exploration in search of a passage into the Sanctuary below the mountain. The outlet is the Rishi Gorge, a deep, narrow canyon which is very difficult to traverse safely, and is the biggest hindrance to entering the Sanctuary; any other route involves difficult passes, the lowest of which is 5,180 m (16,990 ft).

Hugh Ruttledge attempted to reach the peak three times in the 1930s and failed each time. In a letter to The Times he wrote that 'Nanda Devi imposes on her votaries an admission test as yet beyond their skill and endurance', adding that gaining entry to the Nanda Devi Sanctuary alone was more difficult than reaching the North Pole.

In 1934, the British explorers Eric Shipton and H. W. Tilman, with three Sherpa companions, Angtharkay, Pasang and Kusang, finally discovered a way through the Rishi Gorge into the Sanctuary. Nanda Devi (center) with Sunanda Devi (on the right), Shot from Ranikhet, Almora When the mountain was later climbed in 1936 by a British-American expedition, it became the highest peak climbed until the 1950 ascent of Annapurna, 8,091 metres (26,545 ft).

The expedition climbed the south ridge, also known as the Coxcomb Ridge, which leads relatively directly to the main summit. The summit pair were H. W. Tilman and Noel Odell; Charles Houston was to be in place of Tilman, but he contracted severe food poisoning. Noted mountaineer and mountain writer H. Adams Carter was also on the expedition, which was notable for its small scale and lightweight ethic: it included only seven climbers, and used no fixed ropes, nor any Sherpa support above 6,200 m (20,300 ft).

Eric Shipton, who was not involved in the climb itself, called it "the finest mountaineering achievement ever performed in the Himalaya."