#norman clyde

[vintagecamping]

Climbing legend Norman Clyde

Many climbers would rank him second only to John Muir as an intimate pioneer of places inaccessible but second to none as a climber.   

Clyde climbed Mt. Whitney at least 50 times. Between 1914 and about 1940, he became the first climber to reach the tops of at least 126 peak.  

[house-under-a-rock]

"In such a life there is, of course, a good deal of adventure, some romance, and a certain amount of hardship. The more one learns to take care of himself, however, the less hardship there is!" - Norman Clyde

[jasontylerburton]

Norman Clyde. from Climbing Magazine. 1972. From: Supertopo

[theroamer]

"As I carefully and deliberately made my way down toward the notch, I scanned and re-scanned the northwestern face. Much of it was concealed by irregularities. Suddenly a fly droned past, then another, and another... I began to follow a ledge running in a northwesterly direction. When I had gone along it but a few yards, turning about, I looked upward and across the chute to the northwestern face. There, lying on a ledge not more than fifty yards distant, were the earthly remains of Walter A. Starr, Jr. He had obviously fallen, perhaps several hundred feet, to instantaneous death." - Norman Clyde on discovering the body of Walter A. Starr, Jr. who perished solo-climbing the northwest face of Michael Minaret in 1933. He was buried where he was found. Seventy years later an epitaph was placed which included the last two lines of a poem Starr wrote before his final journey: "defiant mountains beckon me to glory and dream in their paradise."

[theroamer]

"Norman Clyde was attracted to the Sierra Nevada Mountains sometime after 1911 while in his mid-20s... Clyde spent more than 50 years perfecting his mental maps, locating crashed airplanes, and rescuing lost souls and climbers in trouble - or retrieving their bodies.

Clyde's name was legendary. Many climbers would rank him second only to John Muir as an intimate pioneer of places inaccessible and second to none as a climber... Clyde climbed Mt. Whitney at least 50 times. Between 1914 and about 1940, he became the first climber to reach the tops of at least 126 peaks."

[wildernessjournals]

Norman Clyde of the Sierra Nevada.