Harvard Mountaineering Club
Encyclopedia
The Harvard Mountaineering Club is an undergraduate organization of Harvard College
. Founded in 1924, the HMC is one of the oldest college mountaineering clubs in the USA, with a long record of exploratory mountaineering.
, and who was an influential figure in the American Alpine Club
. While at college, club members would train for summer expeditions to the Canadian Rockies by climbing at the nearby Quincy Quarries in the fall and spring, and skiing and mountaineering in the mountains of New Hampshire
in the winter. In 1927 the HMC, as it is known to its members, published its first journal, Harvard Mountaineering. This journal would go on to be published biannually for much of the life of the club, chronicling the climbs and exploits of the club members.
arrived at the college. Washburn was already a mountaineer of some distinction, having climbed numerous peaks in the Alps with his brother and publishing books, including Among the Alps with Bradford in 1927. The royalties from this book and others allowed Washburn to purchase a Ford Model A, which was instrumental for the club. He managed to convince the USFS to issue the HMC a special use permit (still in existence) for a skier's hut on Mount Washington
. Using the Model A, workers from the club managed to build a small cabin at the base of Boott Spur
on Mount Washington. The cabin functioned as a staging ground for the club's mountaineering training and as a base for winter ski races against the Dartmouth Outing Club
.
Up until the start of the Second World War, Washburn's passion for mountaineering and aerial photography
propelled the club to new heights. He would use aerial photography to scout for new routes, and then convince Alaskan airplane pilots to drop HMC climbers off on a glacier
. This practice gave rise to numerous first ascents of some of the highest mountains in North America
, including the dramatic ascent and "escape from Lucania" in 1937, chronicled by HMC member David Roberts
many years later in a book by the same name.
Another prominent club member in that era was Robert L. M. Underhill
, a Harvard faculty member, who completed significant first ascents in the Alps
, the Grand Tetons and the Sierra Nevada. He is credited with introducing modern Alpine belaying
and rope handling techniques to mountaineering in the American west.
. This included testing mountain equipment for the famed 10th Mountain Division, and instructing and serving in its ranks. After the war, a lieutenant from the division, William Lowell Putnam, re-formed the HMC by announcing himself President in the Harvard Crimson
.
expeditions. Robert "Bob" Hicks Bates and Dr. Charles Houston
took part in the 1953 American Expedition to K2
. It was on this expedition that Pete Schoening famously rescued six other climbers with his legendary "ice-axe belay." Bates and Houston wrote The Savage Mountain about this climb.
In the '60s the club was no less active, building, in 1963, a new cabin at the base of Huntington Ravine
(still operated by the HMC to this day), as well as executing numerous ambitious Alaska
n climbs. These climbs include the unrepeated first ascent of the Harvard Route on the Wickersham Wall on Denali. It was also in this period that HMC president David Roberts was involved in the tragic climb of Mount Huntington, resulting in the death of HMCer Ed Bernd. Roberts subsequently wrote about the expedition in The Mountain of My Fear, which helped establish him as one of the leading mountain writers in America.
in Maine. In 1989, founder Henry Hall, still a regular fixture at club events, died.
During the nineties, the club recorded less exploratory activity. The nineties were notable for the building of two, small bouldering walls in the club's space at Claverly Hall, and the publication of a 70th anniversary retrospective journal in 1994.
. Summer trips to Yosemite, the Palisades
, the Italian Dolomites
, and Cascades, have helped strengthen and train a new generation of climbers. In addition, the club revived the dormant journal in 2004.
The club continues to maintain the 1963 cabin on Mount Washington
— adding a new, metal roof in 2006 — and a particularly outstanding library of historic climbing-related literature and periodicals. Over the summer of 2006 members helped convert an old Lowell House
squash court into a modern climbing wall. Membership is open to all Harvard affiliates interested in climbing, but the club is run by a board of undergraduate officers.
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
. Founded in 1924, the HMC is one of the oldest college mountaineering clubs in the USA, with a long record of exploratory mountaineering.
Early history
The club was founded in November 1924, by Henry S. Hall Jr. In its early days the club would meet at the home of Mr. Hall, who specialized in the Canadian RockiesCanadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies comprise the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains range. They are the eastern part of the Canadian Cordillera, extending from the Interior Plains of Alberta to the Rocky Mountain Trench of British Columbia. The southern end borders Idaho and Montana of the USA...
, and who was an influential figure in the American Alpine Club
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...
. While at college, club members would train for summer expeditions to the Canadian Rockies by climbing at the nearby Quincy Quarries in the fall and spring, and skiing and mountaineering in the mountains of New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
in the winter. In 1927 the HMC, as it is known to its members, published its first journal, Harvard Mountaineering. This journal would go on to be published biannually for much of the life of the club, chronicling the climbs and exploits of the club members.
Washburn years
In 1929, a recent Groton graduate by the name of Henry Bradford WashburnBradford Washburn
Henry Bradford Washburn, Jr. was an American explorer, mountaineer, photographer, and cartographer. He established the Boston Museum of Science, served as its director from 1939–1980, and from 1985 until his death served as its Honorary Director .Washburn is especially noted for exploits in four...
arrived at the college. Washburn was already a mountaineer of some distinction, having climbed numerous peaks in the Alps with his brother and publishing books, including Among the Alps with Bradford in 1927. The royalties from this book and others allowed Washburn to purchase a Ford Model A, which was instrumental for the club. He managed to convince the USFS to issue the HMC a special use permit (still in existence) for a skier's hut on Mount Washington
Mount Washington (New Hampshire)
Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at , famous for dangerously erratic weather. For 76 years, a weather observatory on the summit held the record for the highest wind gust directly measured at the Earth's surface, , on the afternoon of April 12, 1934...
. Using the Model A, workers from the club managed to build a small cabin at the base of Boott Spur
Boott Spur
Boott Spur is a minor peak located in Coos County, New Hampshire. The mountain is named after Dr. Francis Boott , and is part of the Presidential Range of the White Mountains...
on Mount Washington. The cabin functioned as a staging ground for the club's mountaineering training and as a base for winter ski races against the Dartmouth Outing Club
Dartmouth Outing Club
The Dartmouth Outing Club is the oldest and largest collegiate outing club in the United States. Proposed in 1909 by Dartmouth College student Fred Harris to "stimulate interest in out-of-door winter sports", the club soon grew to encompass the College's year-round outdoor recreation and has had...
.
Up until the start of the Second World War, Washburn's passion for mountaineering and aerial photography
Aerial photography
Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...
propelled the club to new heights. He would use aerial photography to scout for new routes, and then convince Alaskan airplane pilots to drop HMC climbers off on a glacier
Glacier
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...
. This practice gave rise to numerous first ascents of some of the highest mountains in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, including the dramatic ascent and "escape from Lucania" in 1937, chronicled by HMC member David Roberts
David Roberts (climber)
David Roberts is a climber, mountaineer, and author of books and articles about climbing. He is particularly noted for his books The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative, chronicling major ascents in Alaska in the 1960s, which had a major impact on the form of mountaineering...
many years later in a book by the same name.
Another prominent club member in that era was Robert L. M. Underhill
Robert L. M. Underhill
Robert Lindley Murray Underhill was an American mountaineer best known for introducing modern Alpine style rope and belaying techniques to the U.S. climbing community in the late 1920s and early 1930s....
, a Harvard faculty member, who completed significant first ascents in the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
, the Grand Tetons and the Sierra Nevada. He is credited with introducing modern Alpine belaying
Belaying
thumb|200px|right|A belayer is belaying behind a lead climberBelaying refers to a variety of techniques used in climbing to exert friction on a climbing rope so that a falling climber does not fall very far...
and rope handling techniques to mountaineering in the American west.
Second World War
Although club activities, per se, ceased, many members continued mountaineering in support of the U.S. ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
. This included testing mountain equipment for the famed 10th Mountain Division, and instructing and serving in its ranks. After the war, a lieutenant from the division, William Lowell Putnam, re-formed the HMC by announcing himself President in the Harvard Crimson
Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson are the athletic teams of Harvard University. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2006, there were 41 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other NCAA Division I college in the country...
.
Post-war years
The post-war years saw a second boom in activity by the club. In the 50s, HMC alumni took part in major HimalayanHimalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
expeditions. Robert "Bob" Hicks Bates and Dr. Charles Houston
Charles Snead Houston
-References:-External links:* - Daily Telegraph obituary* Independent obituary, 1 October 2009.-Notes:...
took part in the 1953 American Expedition to K2
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...
. It was on this expedition that Pete Schoening famously rescued six other climbers with his legendary "ice-axe belay." Bates and Houston wrote The Savage Mountain about this climb.
In the '60s the club was no less active, building, in 1963, a new cabin at the base of Huntington Ravine
Huntington Ravine
Huntington Ravine is a glacial cirque on Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It is named for Joshua H. Huntington, the Principal Assistant to State Geologist Charles H...
(still operated by the HMC to this day), as well as executing numerous ambitious Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
n climbs. These climbs include the unrepeated first ascent of the Harvard Route on the Wickersham Wall on Denali. It was also in this period that HMC president David Roberts was involved in the tragic climb of Mount Huntington, resulting in the death of HMCer Ed Bernd. Roberts subsequently wrote about the expedition in The Mountain of My Fear, which helped establish him as one of the leading mountain writers in America.
Seventies, eighties, and nineties
The 1970s saw a refocusing of the club's activities from large mountains and expeditions to more local technical climbs. Through the 1980s, members of the club continued to publish the journal and climb throughout New England, publishing in 1984 a climber's guide to Mount KatahdinMount Katahdin
Mount Katahdin is the highest mountain in Maine at . Named Katahdin by the Penobscot Indians, the term means "The Greatest Mountain". Katahdin is the centerpiece of Baxter State Park: a steep, tall mountain formed from underground magma. The flora and fauna on the mountain are typical of those...
in Maine. In 1989, founder Henry Hall, still a regular fixture at club events, died.
During the nineties, the club recorded less exploratory activity. The nineties were notable for the building of two, small bouldering walls in the club's space at Claverly Hall, and the publication of a 70th anniversary retrospective journal in 1994.
The club today
The club has seen something of a resurgence of (recorded) activity and interest, hosting HMC luminaries like the above-mentioned Bradford Washburn, David Roberts, and John Graham of the Wickersham Wall expedition, as well as famous contemporary climbers such as Alexander Ruchkin, Timmy O'Neill, and Dave Anderson. These slideshows have, in turn, fueled several ambitious new exploits. In the summer of 2005, a group of HMCers led by then-president Lucas Laursen revived the club first-ascent tradition with an exploratory climbing trip to the Borkoldoy Range of KyrgyzstanKyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
. Summer trips to Yosemite, the Palisades
Palisades (California Sierra)
The Palisades are a group of peaks in the central part of the Sierra Nevada in the US state of California. They are located about southwest of the town of Big Pine, California...
, the Italian Dolomites
Dolomites
The Dolomites are a mountain range located in north-eastern Italy. It is a part of Southern Limestone Alps and extends from the River Adige in the west to the Piave Valley in the east. The northern and southern borders are defined by the Puster Valley and the Sugana Valley...
, and Cascades, have helped strengthen and train a new generation of climbers. In addition, the club revived the dormant journal in 2004.
The club continues to maintain the 1963 cabin on Mount Washington
Mount Washington (New Hampshire)
Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at , famous for dangerously erratic weather. For 76 years, a weather observatory on the summit held the record for the highest wind gust directly measured at the Earth's surface, , on the afternoon of April 12, 1934...
— adding a new, metal roof in 2006 — and a particularly outstanding library of historic climbing-related literature and periodicals. Over the summer of 2006 members helped convert an old Lowell House
Lowell House
Lowell House is one of the twelve undergraduate residential houses within Harvard College, located on Holyoke Place facing Mount Auburn Street between the Harvard Yard and the Charles River...
squash court into a modern climbing wall. Membership is open to all Harvard affiliates interested in climbing, but the club is run by a board of undergraduate officers.
Recent leadership
| Club Year | President | Major Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| 2010-2011 | Lauren Onofrey | Mt. Adams Ascent |
| 2009-2010 | Jimmy Watts | Wind River Range Trip |
| 2007-2008 | Kevin Jones and Dunbar Carpenter | North Cascades climbing camp |
| 2006-2007 | Alexander Cole | Lowell Climbing Wall, 2007 journal |
| 2004-2006 | Lucas Laursen | 80th Anniversary HMC Borkoldoy Expedition, 2004 journal |