Frank Smythe

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Francis Sydney Smythe ( July 6, 1900 - June 27, 1949 ) was a British mountaineer and writer , photographer and botanist in the early years of high altitude mountaineering .

Live and act

Smythe trained as an electrical engineer; he worked briefly in the Royal Air Force and Kodak before devoting himself to writing and public readings. Smythe enjoyed mountaineering, photography, collecting plants and gardening. He traveled as a lecturer and he wrote 27 books.

He was known as a mountaineer. The highlights of his mountaineering included climbing the Brenva Wall of Mont Blanc and Kamet , attempts at Kangchenjunga and Mount Everest in the 1930s. He found a tendency to be angry, which, as contemporaries said, “decreased with height.” "Smyte's concentrated work is well documented, not only by his own writing, but also by contemporaries and the work of other authors.

Among his many public readings, those at the Royal Geographical Society stood out. His first in 1931 was titled "Explorations in Garhwal around Kamet", and his second in 1947 was titled "An Expedition to the Lloyd George Mountains, North-East British Columbia" ("An Expedition to the Lloyd George Mountains in Northeast British Columbia ")

North face of Mount Everest, routes and key points
Green line Normal route, in large parts the Mallory route 1924, with high camps at approx. 7700 and 8300 m (Smythes "Camp VI", the left of the triangles)
Red line Great Couloir or Norton Couloir
b) Point on the western edge of the couloir to which Edward Felix Norton came in 1924; Smythe came near this point too

Smythe was an excellent writer and produced many popular books. His book "The Kangchenjunga Adventure" made him a respected author.

During the Second World War he served in the Canadian Rockies as a training officer for mountaineers and for the "Lovat Scouts". He wrote two books on mountaineering in the Rockies, Rocky Mountains (1948) and Climbs in the Canadian Rockies (1951). The Mount Smythe (10,650 ft, 3,500 meters) was named in his honor.

In 1949 in Delhi, he suffered from food poisoning and the continued malaria attacks were now taking their toll. He died on June 27, 1949, two weeks before his 49th birthday.

Highlights as a mountaineer

  • In 1927 and 1928 Smythe and T. Graham Brown made the first ascent over two routes through the Brenva wall of Mont Blanc , the " Sentinelle Rouge " and the " Route Mayeure ". These were the first routes on the wall.
  • 1930 Smythe was a member of the international team (Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Great Britain) to climb the Kangchenjunga under the direction of Professor Günter Dyhrenfurth .
  • 1931 Smythe was the leader of the first successful expedition to climb the Kamet (7,756 m). At that time, this was the height record for summit successes (on Mount Everest you had climbed higher, but not reached the summit). During the Kamet expedition, Smythe and Holdswordth discovered the flower valley in the Himalayas, which belongs to the state of Uttarakhand ( India ).
  • 1933 Smythe was a member of the Everest expedition led by Hugh Ruttledge .
  • 1936 Smythe was again a member of Hugh Ruttedge's second Everest expedition.
  • 1938 Smythe was a member of the expedition to Everest led by Eric Shipton and Bill Tilman .

In particular, the book entitled "Camp 6" made Smythe very well known. (The sixth camp is the last camp on the north side of Mt. Everest, below the northeast ridge at an altitude of 8,300 meters, in the death zone.) In it he describes his breathtaking climb towards the summit in the north face of Everest, which after an early retreat his partner was largely a solo effort into Norton Couloir - but he did not reach the summit. On the way back, he noticed two pulsating objects on the ridge - a first written draft of the hallucinations that await a climber at this altitude when exhausted, dehydrated, and at the end of his physical and mental powers.

Fonts

(Selection)

  • Climbs and Ski Runs (1930) Blackwood, Edinburgh
  • The Kangchenjunga Adventure (1930) Gollanz, London
  • Kamet Conquered (1932) Gollanz, London
  • To Alpine Journey (1934) Hodder, London
  • The Spirit of the Hills (1935) Hodder, London
  • Over Tyrolese Hills (1936) Hodder, London
  • Camp 6 (1937) Hodder, London
  • The Valley of the Flowers (1938) Hodder, London
  • The Mountain Scene (1937) A&C Black
  • Peaks and Valleys (1938) A&C Black
  • A Camera in the Hills (1939) A&C Black
  • Mountaineering Holiday (1940) Hodder, London
  • Edward Whymper (1940) Hodder, London
  • My Alpine Album (1940) A&C Black
  • Adventures of a Mountaineer (1940) Dent
  • The Mountain Vision (1941) Hodder, London
  • Over Welsh Hills (1941) A&C Black
  • Alpine Ways (1942) A&C Black
  • Secret Mission (1942) Hodder and Stoughton, London
  • British Mountaineers (1942) Collins
  • Snow on the hills (1946) A&C Black
  • The Mountain Top (1947) St Hugh's Press
  • Again Switzerland (1947) Hodder, London
  • Rocky Mountains (1948) A&C Black
  • Swiss Winter (1948) A&C Black
  • Mountains in Color (1949) Max Parrish
  • Climbs in the Canadian Rockies (1950) Hodder, London

Many of his books were subsequently republished in the United States; some of the best became collector's items.

credentials

  1. ^ A b Frank S. Smythe: The Six Alpine / Himalayan Climbing Books . Baton Wicks, Appendix V 2000, ISBN 1-898573-37-9 , pp. 933-934.
  2. ^ George Band: Everest: The Official History . HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2003.
  3. ↑ Harry Calvert: Smythe's Mountains: FS Smythe and his Climbs . Gollancz, 1985.
  4. ^ FS Smythe: The Valley of Flowers . WW Norton, 1949.
  5. ^ Hugh Ruttledge: Everest 1933 . Hodder and Stoughton, 1933.
  6. ^ HW Tilman: Mount Everest 1938 . Pilgrims Publishing, 1938.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Smythe, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smythe, Francis Sydney (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British climber and author
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1900
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1949