Oxford University Mountaineering Club

Last updated

The Oxford University Mountaineering Club (OUMC) was founded in 1909 by Arnold Lunn, then a Balliol undergraduate; he did not earn a degree. [1] [2]

Contents

History

The club has taken a significant part in the development of mountaineering in the United Kingdom, and many British climbers have been members of the club. [2] Andrew Irvine was at Merton College and was a member of the OUMC at the time of his fatal attempt to climb Everest with George Mallory. Tom Bourdillon (whose father was one of the club's founders), Charles Evans and Michael Westmacott, all former members of the OUMC, [3] were members of the successful 1953 British Expedition to Everest. Evans was Deputy Leader to John Hunt on that expedition, Bourdillon was responsible for the oxygen apparatus, and Westmacott was in charge of keeping the dangerous passage through the Khumbu Icefall open. [4] Bourdillon and Evans made the first attempt on the summit, on 26 May 1953, three days before the successful climb by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. They reached the South Summit [4] (at 8750 m then the highest summit to have been climbed), but had to turn back due to severe exhaustion. Charles Evans was later the Leader of the first successful expedition to Kangchenjunga in 1955. [4]

Stephen Venables was the first British climber to climb Everest without using an oxygen cylinder; he climbed to the South Col via the Kangshung Face, creating a new route, and then went solo to the summit, as his colleagues were exhausted. [4]

The club has sent exploratory mountaineering expeditions to mountain ranges all over the world. It claims first ascents of peaks in such places as Greenland, the Himalayas, the Karakoram, Kishtwar, Peru, Spitsbergen, and Wakhan. [2] [4]

Governance

The club is operated by committee – the executive (president, secretary, treasurer) is always made up from Oxford University Students but the wider committee roles are open to any members.

Functions and traditions

The club usually meets on a Wednesday during Oxford term time at the Gardeners Arms pub. This is where members can sign up to go on weekend 'meets'. Meets are organised climbing trips facilitated by the hire of a minibus and campsite. The club meets typically include overnight trips to Dartmoor, the Lake District and Cornwall and single day trips to the Wye Valley and Peak District. Alongside outdoor climbing trips the club organises:

Notable members

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Everest</span> Earths highest mountain

Mount Everest is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation of 8,848.86 m was most recently established in 2020 by the Chinese and Nepali authorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Mallory</span> English mountaineer (1886–1924)

George Herbert Leigh-Mallory was an English mountaineer who participated in the first three British Mount Everest expeditions from the early to mid-1920s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Irvine (mountaineer)</span> British mountaineer (1902–1924)

Andrew Comyn "Sandy" Irvine was an British mountaineer who took part in the 1924 British Everest Expedition, the third British expedition to the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest.

The goal of the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition of 1999 was to discover evidence of whether George Mallory and Andrew Irvine had been the first to summit Mount Everest in their attempt of 8–9 June 1924. The expedition was instigated by British climber Graham Hoyland. It was organised by regular Everest expedition leader Eric Simonson and advised by researcher Jochen Hemmleb, with a team of climbers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Hemmleb's investigations of reports of earlier sightings and photographs had led him to identify what he believed was the area in which Irvine's body lay, some distance below where his ice axe had been found by Percy Wyn-Harris on the expedition led by Hugh Ruttledge in 1933. The team hoped in particular to find a camera on Irvine's body which, had the pair been successful, should have contained a picture of the summit. After commencing the search on 1 May 1999, Conrad Anker mistakenly got off course and, surprisingly, found Mallory's body, not Irvine's.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noel Odell</span>

Noel Ewart Odell FRSE FGS was an English geologist and mountaineer. In 1924 he was an oxygen officer on the Everest expedition in which George Mallory and Andrew Irvine famously perished during their summit attempt. Odell spent two weeks living above 23,000 feet (7,000 m), and twice climbed to 26,800 feet (8,200 m) and higher, all without supplemental oxygen. In 1936 Noel Odell with Bill Tilman climbed Nanda Devi, at the time the highest mountain climbed.

Stephen Venables is a British mountaineer and writer, and is a past president of the South Georgia Association and of the Alpine Club. He is the first Briton to ascend the summit of Mount Everest without bottled oxygen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kangshung Face</span> Eastern-facing side of Mount Everest

The Kangshung Face or East Face is the eastern-facing side of Mount Everest, one of the Tibetan sides of the mountain. It is 3,350 metres (11,000 ft) from its base on the Kangshung Glacier to the summit. It is a broad face, topped on the right by the upper Northeast Ridge, and on the left by the Southeast Ridge and the South Col. Most of the upper part of the face is composed of hanging glaciers, while the lower part consists of steep rock buttresses with couloirs between them. The steep southern third of the Kangshung Face also comprises the Northeastern Face of Lhotse; this section may be considered a separate face altogether following the division of the South "Neverest" Buttress up to the South Col. It is considered a dangerous route of ascent, compared to the standard North Col and South Col routes, and it is the most remote face of the mountain, with a longer approach.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of Mount Everest expeditions</span>

Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at 8,849 metres (29,031.7 ft) above sea level. It is situated in the Himalayan range of Solukhumbu district, Nepal.

Michael Horatio Westmacott was a prominent British mountaineer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Evans (mountaineer)</span> English mountaineer

Sir Robert Charles Evans was a British mountaineer, surgeon, and educator. He was leader of the 1955 British Kangchenjunga expedition and deputy leader of the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition, both of which were successful.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Bourdillon</span> English mountaineer (1924–1956)

Thomas Duncan Bourdillon was an English mountaineer and member of the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition which made the first ascent of Mount Everest. He died in Valais, Switzerland, on 29 July 1956 aged 32.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Hahn</span> American mountaineer

David Allen Hahn is an American mountaineer, ski patroller and journalist. In May 2013, he reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 15th time—at the time, this was the most summits for a non-Sherpa climber, according to Outside Magazine contributor and climber Alan Arnette. His record was surpassed by Kenton Cool in 2022. Among Hahn’s other notable accomplishments are his 39 summits of Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest mountain. He has reached the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest peak, 25 times over the course of 37 expeditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1924 British Mount Everest expedition</span> Attempt at first ascent of Mount Everest in 1924

The 1924 British Mount Everest expedition was—after the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition—the 2nd expedition with the goal of achieving the first ascent of Mount Everest. After two summit attempts in which Edward Norton set a world altitude record of 8,572.8 metres (28,126 ft), the mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine disappeared on the third attempt. Their disappearance has given rise to the long-standing speculation of whether or not the pair might – under a narrow set of assumptions – have reached the summit. Mallory's body was found in 1999 at 8,156 metres (26,760 ft), but the resulting clues did not provide any conclusive evidence as to whether the summit was reached.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Expedition climbing</span> Style of mountaineering

Expedition climbing, is a type of mountaineering that uses a series of well-stocked camps on the mountain that lead to the summit, and which are supplied by teams of mountain porters. In addition, expedition climbing can also employ multiple 'climbing teams' to work on the climbing route—not all of whom are expected to make the summit—and allows the use of supports such as fixed ropes, aluminum ladders, supplementary oxygen, and sherpa climbers. By its nature, expedition climbing often requires weeks to complete a given climbing route, and months of pre-planning given the greater scale of people and equipment that need to be coordinated for the climb.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1952 Swiss Mount Everest expedition</span>

The 1952 Swiss Mount Everest expedition was an attempt to summit Mount Everest. Led by, Edouard Wyss-Dunant, the expedition, which included Tenzing Norgay, reached a height of 8,595 metres (28,199 ft) on the southeast ridge, setting a new climbing altitude record and opening up a new route to Mount Everest and paving the way for further successes by other expeditions. Norgay successfully summited the mountain the following year with Sir Edmund Hillary, the first successful expedition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1953 British Mount Everest expedition</span> First successful ascent of Mount Everest

The 1953 British Mount Everest expedition was the ninth mountaineering expedition to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and the first confirmed to have succeeded when Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit on 29 May 1953. Led by Colonel John Hunt, it was organised and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee. News of the expedition's success reached London in time to be released on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, on 2 June that year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoffrey Bruce</span> British Indian Army officer, mountaineer

Major General John Geoffrey Bruce was an officer in the British Indian Army, eventually becoming Deputy Chief of General Staff, who participated in the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition. Bruce, who had never before climbed a mountain, had been appointed as a transport officer, but chance led to him accompanying George Finch on the only summit attempt that used supplemental oxygen. Together they set a new mountaineering world record height of 27,300 ft (8,321 m), only 1,731.7 ft (527.82 m) below the summit of Mount Everest. He also took part in the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition, and for a time was slated to make the first summit attempt with George Mallory, before the party was forced to retreat and Mallory subsequently went for the top with Sandy Irvine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Summit</span>

The South Summit is a subsidiary peak of Mount Everest in the Himalayas between the South Col and the main summit above sea level. Although the South Summit's elevation of 8,749 metres (28,704 ft) is higher than the second-highest mountain on Earth, it is not considered a separate mountain as its topographic prominence is only 11 meters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman Hardie</span> New Zealand climber (1924–2017)

Norman David Hardie was a New Zealand climber who was one of the climbers on the 1955 British Kangchenjunga expedition who first reached the summit of the 8,586-metre (28,169 ft) mountain, the third-highest mountain in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1952 British Cho Oyu expedition</span> Failed climbing expedition to Cho Oyu

The 1952 British expedition to Cho Oyu the Turquoise Goddess was organized by the Joint Himalayan Committee. It had been hoped to follow up the 1951 Everest expedition with another British attempt on Everest in 1952, but Nepal had accepted a Swiss application for 1952, to be followed in 1953 with a British attempt. So in 1952, Eric Shipton was to lead an attempt to ascend Cho Oyu, and Griffith Pugh was to trial oxygen equipment and train members for 1953. But the expedition failed both aims; that plus Shipton’s poor leadership and planning resulted in his replacement as a leader for the 1953 expedition.

References

  1. Denning, Andrew (2014). Skiing Into Modernity: A Cultural and Environmental History. Univ of California Press. p. 7. ISBN   978-0-520-28427-2.
  2. 1 2 3 Ross, Andrew (2009). "100 Years of The OUMC A Brief and Personal History" (PDF). Alpine Journal. Retrieved 23 February 2017.
  3. Thompson, Simon (21 July 2011). Unjustifiable Risk?: The Story of British Climbing. Cicerone Press. p. 237. ISBN   978-1852846275.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "A Brief History of OUMC". OUMC. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
  5. Isserman, Maurice; Weaver, Stewart; Molenaar, Dee (2010). Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes. Yale University Press. p. 278. ISBN   978-0-300-16420-6.

Other notable mountaineering clubs