Athletes - Norman Clyde

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Norman Clyde

	Athletes - Norman Clyde

Norman Clyde (April 8,1885–December 23,1972) was a famous mountaineer, nature photographer, and self trained naturalist. He is well-known for performing over 100 first ascents in California's Sierra Nevada. These first ascents include:

Clyde Minaret (subsequently named after him)
Triple Divide Peak (California)
Laurel Mountain (in the Sherwin Range)
Thunderbolt Peak
many of the Devil's Crags

He also set a speed climbing record on Mount Shasta.

Clyde was born in Philadelphia, the son of a Presbyterian minister. At Beneva College he majored in the classics, later graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 1911. After a dozen years teaching in North Dakota, Utah and Arizona he moved to the Owens Valley on the east flank of the Sierra.

He spent many summers traveling about in these mountains, bagging first ascents. He served as climbing leader at Sierra Club base camps where he became know as "the pack that walks like a man" because of the huge backpacks he carried. In addition to as many as five cameras, he carried a hammer and cobbler's anvil in order to make field repairs to client's boots.

He became principal of the high school at Independence, California in 1924, but resigned in 1927. He was accused of firing of a gun over the heads of some students who came to vandalize the school on Halloween night. Subsequently he spent his winters as the caretaker of the local lodges, including Glacier Lodge on Big Pine Creek, and Lon Chaney, Sr.'s fishing cabin.

Clyde lead or participated in many mountain rescues saving a number of lives. He said of himself, "I'm like the village half-wit who could always find Old Bes the cow when nobody else could. I just imagine where I'd go if I were Old Bes – and then I go there." He helped in many recoveries and is remembered for discovering Pete Starr's body on the Minarets, in 1933, after all other searchers gave up. Clyde buried Starr in situ.

Norman Clyde still guided parties into the Sierra into the 1960s, when he was in his seventies.

Clyde's Ledge, Clyde's Meadow, Clyde Minaret, and Norman Clyde Peak (on the Palisade Crest) bear his name. His ashes were scattered from Norman Clyde Peak by Smoke Blanchard, his son Bob Blanchard and a party that included Jules Eichorn.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Norman Clyde ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Norman Clyde; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay