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Born | [1] Hull, England | 15 January 1875
Died | 26 June 1964 89) Achiltibuie, Scotland | (aged
Occupation(s) | explorer, mountaineer, ornithologist and medical doctor |
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Climbing career | |
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Tom George Longstaff (15 January 1875 – 26 June 1964) [1] was an English medical doctor, explorer and mountaineer, most famous for being the first person to climb a summit of over 7,000 metres in elevation, Trisul, in the India/Pakistan Himalayas in 1907. [2] He also made important explorations and climbs in Tibet, Nepal, the Karakoram, Spitsbergen, Greenland, and Baffin Island. [3] He was a founding member of The Alpine Ski Club in 1908 and the Himalayan Club (1929), [4] was elected as an Honorary Member of the Climbers Club in 1932 and was its President from 1933–1935 [5] and was president of the (British) Alpine Club from 1947 to 1949. [6]
Longstaff was the eldest son of Lt-Col. Llewellyn W. Longstaff OBE of Wimbledon, the first and most generous supporter of Captain Scott's National Antarctic Expedition. [7] He was educated at Eton College, Christ Church, Oxford, and St Thomas' Hospital, London. [7]
Longstaff was commissioned into the 1/7th Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment in 1914 and served on the General Staff at Army Headquarters, Simla, 1915–1916. He was Assistant Commandant of the Gilgit Corps of Scouts, Frontier Militia, and Special Assistant at Fort Gupis to the Political Agent in Gilgit, from 1916, and was promoted Captain in 1917, retiring from the service in 1918. [7]
During the Second World War, he served with the 7th and 13th Battalion of the KRRC from 1939 to 1941.
Longstaff climbed in the Alps, the Caucasus, [9] Rocky Mountains, Greenland, Spitsbergen, Himalayas and the Selkirks [10] (with Wheeler).
Before the Great War, he travelled in Tibet in 1905, ascended Trisul in the Himalayas, 1907, [11] and in 1908 he was awarded the Gill Memorial by the Royal Geographical Society for his work in the Himalaya and Tibet. [7]
He went on to explore the Siachen Glacier and, with A.M. Slingsby, he discovered the peaks of Teram Kangri in 1909. [12] It has been written that the map he made during this journey "completely altered the topography as shown on older maps". [2]
After the war, he took part in an Oxford University Expedition to Spitsbergen in 1921 with Odell [13] and was chief medical officer and naturalist on the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition. [8] [14] He returned to Spitsbergen in 1923 and to the Garhwal Himalaya in 1927. He led the Oxford University Expedition to Greenland in 1928 [15] and the same year was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his work in the Himalaya, especially his discovery of the Siachen Glacier. In Greenland again, 1931 and 1934, and Baffin Island, 1934 with Wordie and others. [16]
When there were difficulties financing the 1938 Everest expedition Longstaff offered to underwrite the cost - on condition that the expedition was led by either Tilman or Shipton, that there would be no advance publicity and that, where possible, the climbers would each pay their own way. [17]
He was a well respected amateur ornithologist [18] and in 1933 he was one of eleven people [lower-alpha 1] involved in the appeal that led to the foundation of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), an organisation for the study of birds in the British Isles. [19]
He lived at Achiltibuie, in the Highlands of Scotland, where he died at the age of eighty-nine on 26 June 1964. [4]
Gasherbrum I, surveyed as K5 and also known as Hidden Peak, is the 11th highest mountain in the world at 8,080 metres (26,510 ft) above sea level. It is located between Shigar District in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan and Tashkurgan in the Xinjiang of China. Gasherbrum I is part of the Gasherbrum Massif, located in the Karakoram region of the Himalaya. Gasherbrum is often claimed to mean "Shining Wall", presumably a reference to the highly visible face of the neighboring peak Gasherbrum IV; but in fact, it comes from "rgasha" (beautiful) + "brum" (mountain) in Balti, hence it actually means "beautiful mountain."
Masherbrum is a mountain located in the Ghanche District in the Gilgit Baltistan region of Pakistan. With an elevation of 7,821 metres, it ranks as the 22nd highest mountain globally and the 9th highest in Pakistan. It holds the distinction of being the first mapped peak in the Karakoram mountain range during the Great Trigonometrical Survey, leading to its K-number designation as "K1".
Disteghil Sar or Distaghil Sar is the highest mountain in the Shimshal Valley, part of the Karakoram mountain range in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. It is the 19th-highest mountain on Earth, the 7th-highest in Pakistan, and the first of the high peaks after Shishapangma to be the tallest independent summit of its own subrange. Disteghil sar is a Wakhi language word suggested by the Wakhi people of Shimshal, meaning "above the inner ranch." The mountain has a 3-kilometre-long (1.9 mi) top ridge above 7,400 meters elevation, with three distinct summits: Northwest, 7885 m; Central, 7760 m; and Southeast, 7696m or 7535m.
Józef Jerzy Kukuczka was a Polish mountaineer. He was born in Katowice, his family was ethnically Silesian Goral. On 18 September 1987, he became the second man to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders in the world; a feat which took him less than 8 years to accomplish. He climbed all, except Lhotse, by new routes or in winter. He is the only person to have climbed two eight-thousanders in one winter and his ascents of Cho Oyu, Kangchenjunga and Annapurna were first winter ascents. His ascent of K2 was made in alpine style with Tadeusz Piotrowski, that route has not had a second ascent in over 35 years. Reinhold Messner, upon hearing that Kukuczka had completed all fourteen 8000ers, wrote to him: "you are not second you are great", a line which is reproduced as the epigraph of Kukuczka book and the polish translation forms the title of a biography published in 2021.
Donald Desbrow Whillans was an English rock climber and mountaineer. He climbed with Joe Brown and Chris Bonington on many new routes, and was considered the technical equal of both.
Major Harold William Tilman, CBE, DSO, MC and Bar, was an English mountaineer and explorer, renowned for his Himalayan climbs and sailing voyages.
John Angelo Jackson was an English mountaineer, explorer and educationalist.
Brigadier-General The Honourable Charles Granville Bruce, CB, MVO was a veteran Himalayan mountaineer and leader of the second and third British expeditions to Mount Everest in 1922 and 1924. In recognition of the former he was awarded a special prize at the conclusion of the first ever Winter Olympics.
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.
Trisul is a group of three Himalayan mountain peaks of western Kumaun, Uttarakhand, with the highest reaching 7120m. The three peaks resemble a trident - in Sanskrit, Trishula, trident, is the weapon of Shiva. The Trishul group forms the southwest corner of the ring of peaks enclosing the Nanda Devi Sanctuary, about 15 kilometres (9 mi) west-southwest of Nanda Devi itself. The main peak, Trisul I, was the first peak over 7,000 m (22,970 ft) to have ever been climbed, in 1907.
Andrzej Zawada was a Polish mountaineer, expedition leader and pioneer of winter Himalayism. Zawada was an organiser and leader of numerous high-mountains expeditions. Author of movies and photographs from expeditions, co-author of Alpinist books. Honorary member of the British Alpine Club, French Groupe de Haute Montagne and American The Explorers Club.
Hugh Ruttledge was an English civil servant and mountaineer who was the leader of two expeditions to Mount Everest in 1933 and 1936.
In the history of mountaineering, the world altitude record referred to the highest point on the Earth's surface which had been reached, regardless of whether that point was an actual summit. The world summit record referred to the highest mountain to have been successfully climbed. The terms are most commonly used in relation to the history of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges, though modern evidence suggests that it was not until the 20th century that mountaineers in the Himalaya exceeded the heights which had been reached in the Andes. The altitude and summit records rose steadily during the early 20th century until 1953, when the ascent of Mount Everest made the concept obsolete.
Zygmunt Andrzej Heinrich was a Polish mountaineer who made several ascents of eight-thousanders. He died in an avalanche on the northwest slopes of Mount Everest in 1989.
Trevor Hyam Braham was a British Himalayan explorer and mountaineer, mostly active during the mid-20th century.
Raymond Leslie Burrows Colledge was an English climber and mountaineer who was a member of the British 1952 Cho Oyu expedition and made the third British ascent of the north face of the Eiger in 1969.
The Shipton–Tilman Nanda Devi expeditions took place in the 1930s. Nanda Devi is a Himalayan mountain in what was then the Garhwal District in northern India, just west of Nepal, and at one time it was thought to be the highest mountain in the world.
Aleš Kunaver was a Slovenian alpinist and tour guide.
Karl Maria Herrligkoffer was a German medical doctor, who from 1953 and 1986, organized and directed numerous German and Austrian mountaineering expeditions including 13 expeditions to five of the world's highest peaks in the Himalayas and the Karakoram. There were some notable successes on these expeditions including the first ascent of Nanga Parbat (8126m), and also the second and third ascent of that mountain, the successful ascent of Everest (8849m) by 15 people from one expedition, the first ascent of the South Ridge of K2 (8611m), the first attempt on Broad Peak (8051m), and the first ascent of about 35 peaks during two expeditions to east Greenland.