Tom Patey
Thomas Walton Patey (born February 20, 1932 in Ellon (Scotland) , † May 25, 1970 in Whiten Head , Scotland ) was a British mountaineer.
Although a leading Scottish climber of his day, particularly on winter routes, he is perhaps best known for his humorous mountaineering songs and poems, many of which were published posthumously in the anthology One Man's Mountains .
Life
Patey attended Ellon Academy and Robert Gordon's College in Aberdeen . He was already interested in climbing as a boy scout, but it wasn't until the University of Aberdeen , where he completed a medical degree, that he showed his full talent as an expedition mountaineer and headed the Lairig Club. Many of his early first ascent routes were on Lochnagar and the neighboring Cairngorms .
He climbed extensively in Scotland, for example, he made the first winter crossing of the Cuillin Ridge in 1965 with Hamish MacInnes, David Crabbe and Brian Robertson. He, Rusty Baillie and Chris Bonington first climbed the Old Man of Hoy in 1966 , which he repeated in a live broadcast on the BBC on July 8 and 9, 1967. In 1966 he climbed the Old Man of Stoer off the coast of Assynt for the first time with a rope team . In 1968, Patey and Ian Clough were the first to climb Am Buachaille , a breakwater off the Sutherland coast . He also undertook notable climbs in the Alps and the Karakoram including the first ascent of the Muztagh Tower (7,273 m) with John Hartog, Joe Brown and Ian McNaught-Davis in 1956 and of the Rakaposhi (7,788 m) in 1958 with Michael Banks .
At the time of his death he was working as a family doctor in Ullapool , in the far north west of Scotland. He had a fatal accident while rappelling from The Maiden , a breakwater at Whiten Head off the coast of Sutherland.
Fonts
- 1971: One Man's Mountains. Gollancz, London, ISBN 0-575-01358-3 .
literature
- Peter Donnelly: Patey, Thomas Walton [Tom] (1932-1970). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press , 2004.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ↑ Sandwood Bay on walkhighlands.co.uk
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Patey, Tom |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Patey, Thomas Walton |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British climber |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 20, 1932 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ellon (Scotland) |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 25, 1970 |
| Place of death | Whiten Head , Scotland |