John Harlin

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John Elvis Harlin II ( June 30, 1935 - March 22, 1966 ) was a US Air Force pilot and American mountaineer .

The Fou team at the L'Envers des Aiguilles refuge: John Harlin II, Tom Frost, Gary Hemming and Stewart Fulton

Life

Harlin graduated from Sequoia High School and Stanford University . He lived with his wife and two children in Germany and Switzerland, where he founded the International Mountaineering School in Leysin . After he gained international recognition in 1962 with the first American ascent of the Eiger north face and the Aiguille du Dru , he wanted to climb the Eiger north face in a direttissima (direct route). 400 meters below the summit, his safety rope broke and Harlin fell fatally. His climbing partner, the Scottish mountaineer Dougal Haston , nevertheless reached the summit together with a German rope team. This new route was called the John Harlin Direttissima.

The story of this ascent was told by Britons Peter Gillman and Dougal Haston in their book Direttissima: The Eiger Assault .

Harlin's son, John Harlin III, who was nine when his father died, is also a mountaineer and editor-in-chief of the American Alpine Journal. John Harlin III, author of five books, climbed the Eiger in 2008 using the classic north face route. He has written a book ("The Eiger Obsession. Facing the Mountain That Killed My Father") about his father's life, his life as a mountaineer and his passion for the Eiger -North Face. A film about the son's ascent to the north face was released in May 2007: “ The Alps ” by Steve Judson is an Imax film about the Eiger and other Alpine peaks.

First ascents

1965: Direttissima Aiguille du Dru, Mont Blanc massif, France. With Royal Robbins.

literature

  • James Salter: Solo Faces . Collins 1980
  • James Ramsay Ullman: Straight Up: The Life and Death of John Harlin . Doubleday 1968
  • John Harlin: The Eiger Obsession : Facing the mountain that killed my father. Simon & Schuster 2007; Lyons Press 2009
  • John Harlin: The Wall of All Walls - The Eiger, my father and me . Piper 2008

References

John Harlin: Petit Dru, West Face Direttissima . American Alpine Journal (New York City, New York, USA: The American Alpine Club) 1966: 81-89. ISSN  0065-6925

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The mirror 14/1966 , accessed on December 2, 2012
  2. ↑ piper-verlag.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 2, 2012@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.piper-verlag.de  
personal data
SURNAME Harlin, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harlin, John Elvis II
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American extreme mountaineer
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1935
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1966