climb to the lost world: through dense guyanian rainforest to the towering summit of mount roraima

Over 9,000 feet up on the top of Mount Roraima is a twenty-five mile square plateau, at the point where Guyana’s border meets Venezuela and Brazil. In 1973, Scottish mountaineering legend Hamish MacInnes alongside climbing notoriety Don Whillans, Mo Anthoine and Joe Brown trekked through dense rainforest and swamp, and climbed the sheer overhanging sandstone wall of the great prow in order to conquer this Conan Doyle fantasy summit.

As one of the last unexplored corners of the world, in order to reach the foot of the prow the motley yet vastly experienced expedition trudged through a saturated world of bizarre vegetation, fantastically contorted slime-coated trees and deep white mud; a world dominated by bushmaster snakes, scorpions and giant bird-eating spiders.

This wasn’t the end of it, however. The stately prow itself posed extreme technical complications: the rock was streaming with water, and the few-and-far-between ledges were teeming with scorpion-haunted bromeliads. This was not a challenge to be taken lightly. However, if anyone was going to do it, it was going to be this group of UK climbing pioneers, backed by The Observer, supported by the Guyanan Government, and accompanied by a BBC camera team, their mission was very much in the public eye.

Climb to the Lost World is a story of discovering an alien world of tortured rock formations, sunken gardens and magnificent waterfalls, combined with the trials and tribulations of day-to-day expedition life. MacInnes’ dry humour and perceptive observations of his companions, flora and fauna relay the story of this first ascent with passion and in true explorer style.

Born in 1930, Hamish Maclnnes OBE is a Scottish mountaineer with a leading climbing record. He has made many first ascents in Scotland, including the 1965 first winter traverse of Skye’s Cuillin Ridge, alongside Tom Patey, Brian Robertson and David Crabbe. In 1973 he climbed the infamous prow of Roraima in Venezuela with Don Whillans, Joe Brown and Mo Anthoine. He has taken part in seven expeditions to the Himalaya, and was deputy leader on Chris Bonington’s 1975 Everest South-West Face expedition on which Dougal Haston and Doug Scott made the first British ascent. In addition to around twenty world-class expeditions, he found time to invent items of advanced mountain-rescue equipment including the MacInnes stretcher and specialised ice-climbing hardware such as the Terrordactyl ice axe. MacInnes founded the Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team in 1961 and served as team leader for over thirty years. An internationally renowned rescue expert, he also founded the Search and Rescue Dog Association and has been the honorary secretary of the Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland, an honorary member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club and holds four honorary doctorates. He has authored an impressive thirty-five books, illustrated with his beautiful photography for which he has become renowned, and has also contributed to hundreds of documentaries and films, including The Eiger Sanction, Highlander and The Living Daylights.