The David A. Sowles Memorial Award is the American Alpine Club's

American Alpine Club

The American Alpine Club, or AAC, was founded in 1902 by Charles Ernest Fay, and is the leading national organization in the United States devoted to mountaineering, climbing, and the multitude of issues facing climbers...

 highest award for valour, bestowed at irregular intervals on mountaineer

Mountaineer

-Sports:*Mountaineering, the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains, also known as alpinism-University athletic teams and mascots:*Appalachian State Mountaineers, the athletic teams of Appalachian State University...

s who have "distinguished themselves, with unselfish devotion at personal risk or sacrifice of a major objective, in going to the assistance of fellow climbers imperilled in the mountains." It is named after David A. Sowles, a climber who died in the Alps in 1963.

Notable recipients include the members of the Third American Karakoram Expedition

Third American Karakoram Expedition

The 1953 American Karakoram Expedition was a mountaineering expedition to K2, at 8,611 metres the second highest mountain on Earth. It was the fifth expedition to attempt K2, and the first since the Second World War...

 for their attempted rescue of Art Gilkey

Art Gilkey

Art Gilkey was an American geologist and mountaineer. He explored Alaska in 1950 and 1952. He died during a 1953 American expedition to K2. Approaching the summit of the peak, he suffered from thrombophlebitis or possibly deep venous thrombosis, followed by pulmonary embolism...

 on K2

K2

K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest...

 in 1953, Pete Athans, Todd Burleson and Anatoli Boukreev

Anatoli Boukreev

Anatoli Nikoliavich Boukreev, , was a Kazakhstani climber who made ascents of seven of the 8,000 metre peaks without supplemental oxygen. In total he made 18 successful ascents on peaks above 8000 m . Boukreev was lost under an avalanche on Annapurna...

  for their part in the 1996 Everest disaster

1996 Everest Disaster

The 1996 Mount Everest disaster refers to the events of 10-11 May 1996, when eight people died on Mount Everest during summit attempts. In the entire season, fifteen people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest single year in Mount Everest's history...

, and Ed Viesturs

Ed Viesturs

Edmund Viesturs, known as Ed Viesturs is one of the world's premier high-altitude mountaineers. He is one of only 26 people and the only one from the United States to have climbed all eight-thousander peaks...

 for two separate rescues on K2

K2

K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest...

in 1992.