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CHAPTER 2

The Pack that Walked like a Man: Early Climbs, 1910–1924

Norman Clyde came west to explore and experience wilderness. His chosen career of teaching enabled him to spend his summers scrambling on the peaks and rambling among the heights. His postcard to his mother in 1910 indicated that he had come to California, and the Sierra Nevada, to “climb the highest mountains in this region.” Although no other record exists regarding the specific peaks that he climbed, that may be attributable to the one of several possible reasons: perhaps he simply did not record his name in the summit registers, or there was no register available, or the record has since been lost.1 And, the loss of his wife both freed him to pursue his passion and impelled him on to an almost furious drive to climb.

Clyde himself stated that 1914 was the first year that he began a regimented program of climbing in the Sierra.2 Yosemite appears to have been his training ground, and of the eleven climbs that he made in 1914 (for which there are records), eight of them were in Yosemite: Mt. Lyell, Unicorn Peak, Cathedral Peak, Mt. Dana, Mt. Gibbs, Foerster Peak, Electra Peak, and Mt. Parker. Three of the eight—Electra, Parker, and Foerster—were first ascents; his routes up all three are classified as “Class 2,” which means that they can be climbed in hiking boots, with an occasional use of the hands. Clyde also made his first ascent that year of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States.3

Joining the Sierra Club introduced Clyde to the mountains that would later become his home, provided him with companionship and, later, a paycheck, and offered him an outlet for his writings. The club was formed in 1892 by a group of prominent San Francisco Bay Area leaders, who elected John Muir their first president. Two of the aims of the club suited Clyde well: “To explore, enjoy, and render accessible the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast; [and] To publish authentic information concerning them…”4 William Colby, working in conjunction with Muir, started the popular annual summer outings for members in 1901. That first summer in the Sierra, nintey-six club members traveled to Tuolumne Meadows to explore and enjoy the high country.

The phrase “render accessible” held particular importance for mountain explorers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Getting to Yosemite wasn’t the leisurely journey in air-conditioned comfort that it is today. Travel was time-consuming, expensive, uncomfortable, and exhausting. Trains transported visitors from the urban centers to small towns like Merced, where they boarded stages or, after 1907, a narrow-gauge railroad that took them to El Portal, gateway to the park. The early wagon roads were steep and narrow, choked with dust during the summer and impassable during and after winter storms. Most visitors to Yosemite restricted themselves to the developed areas of the park—Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point, and the Mariposa Grove—leaving vast tracts of high country to the occasional wilderness traveler and the infrequent Army patrols. Following the Army’s departure in 1913 and the advent of the private automobile, tourism increased dramatically, with a subsequent demand for improved access and accommodations. Those hardy individuals who wanted to escape the campgrounds and hotels on the valley floor found their kindred spirits in other Sierra Club members, who preferred to explore the unpopulated and alluring backcountry.

Clyde’s climbing activities over the next few years approximated those of a motivated and energetic novice. In 1916 he made his first ascent of Mt. Shasta, which he climbed eleven more times during his life, including three times in four days.5 The following summer he was living in Southern California and climbing Mt. San Jacinto with fellow Sierra Club members.6 Winifred Clyde’s illness kept her active husband close to home, and although there is no record of his climbing activities in the few years prior to her death in 1919, he no doubt frequented the nearby San Gabriel Mountains, which he could see from the front of his house on North Mentor Avenue in Pasadena.

Following his wife’s death Clyde sought solitude and comfort in the mountains. The Kings-Kern Divide region of the southern Sierra was the target of Clyde’s climbing activities for the 1919 season. During that summer he climbed Mt. Brewer, East Vidette, Mt. Tyndall, and University Peak, and made two ascents of Mt. Whitney and a second ascent of Mt. Ritter to the north. Clyde was exploring the range from south to north, beginning to fill in some of the voids on his own internal map of the range.

The following year Clyde joined the Sierra Club on their trek from Yosemite Valley to the Evolution Basin. He spent several days in the Clark Range, where he climbed Mt. Clark, Gray Peak, Red Peak, and Merced Peak, and recorded a first ascent of Triple Divide Peak.7 During this period Clyde secured his reputation for being well prepared on wilderness excursions. He was a few days behind the other club members as they made their way from Yosemite Valley south, so he stocked up with ample provisions prior to setting out. At Camp Curry he stopped to weigh his pack, which at seventy-five pounds was more than half of his own weight of one hundred forty pounds. The following evening Clyde met up with a backcountry survey crew, who were impressed with the large load that the redheaded teacher was toting. They pressed an additional twenty pounds of provisions on the unsuspecting hiker, just to see if he could take it. Clyde realized some miles down the trail that he had been made the butt of their joke; however, not being one to pass up free food, he doubtless made good use of the supplies.8 In later years he became known as “the pack that walks like a man.”9 Traveling south along the John Muir Trail, Clyde recorded a first ascent of Mt. Huxley on July 15.10 On the same trip he also climbed (from north to south) Mt. Woodworth, Observation Peak, Mt. Clarence King, Black Mountain, Dragon Peak (a possible first ascent), Mt. Gould, Mt. Rixford, and Mt. Bago.11

A few years later Clyde journeyed north, stopping first at Mt. Shasta. He set a record for the ascent of the volcanic peak, climbing from Horse Camp (8,000 ft. elevation) to the summit (14,161 ft.) in three hours and seventeen minutes on July 3, 1923. Not satisfied with this effort, he again ascended the peak on July 5, making the climb in two hours and forty-three minutes, speeding up the 35-degree slope at a rate of 37.5 feet per minute. The Mount Shasta Herald claimed that Clyde “now holds the undisputed record for climbing Mount Shasta.”

In late August local climbing guide Barney McCoy claimed to have summited the peak in a record-busting two hours and seventeen minutes. The Sierra Club disputed the claim, refusing to overturn Clyde’s record. Clyde himself offered his opinion on the matter to William Colby and fellow Sierra Club member M. Hall McAllister that “[I] do not believe for a minute that he [McCoy] ever made the climb in the time mentioned. The snow is off and his record is next to impossible.”12

From Shasta Clyde went on to Glacier National Park in Montana. In 1923 he spent almost five weeks in its backcountry. At the end of his trip, he resolved to climb one more peak, Mt. Wilbur, thought at the time to be unscalable. Following a careful study of the peak, first from the summit of nearby Grinnell Mountain and them from the veranda of the Many Glacier Hotel, he concluded that the peak could be climbed from the east. A fellow climber and possible companion, Mr. Elrod, conferred with Clyde but concluded that the chimneys Clyde was thinking of climbing were “impossible to scale.” Clyde came to a different conclusion, and set out the next morning for the summit.

Heavy clouds obscured the top half of the mountain as he started his approach. Skirting Iceberg Lake, he scaled the walls rising above the icy water and there encountered an impassable rock face. As the clouds lifted and the afternoon wore on, he began to improvise a route. He scrambled over the tough diorite and worked his way up the chimneys and the ridge between them. Using both his prodigious strength and methodical style he gradually made his way to the summit. As he rested he took in the panoramic views that he was now amply familiar with, and replayed in his mind both the climb he had just completed as well as those of the past several weeks. Following a well-deserved rest, Clyde began to build a summit monument to the memory of Dr. Frank B.Wynn, a fellow climber who had lost his life on nearby Mt. Siyeh. Clyde wrote (in the third person) that he

worked lustily, but the sun was now low in the west, and if darkness should overtake him he [Clyde] would be unable to make the descent. Having erected a cairn some seven feet in height, he cautiously descended as the shadows of evening crept gradually over the mountain. On the following morning the monument could be seen with the naked eye from the veranda of Many Glacier Hotel, and the precipitous form of Mount Wilbur did not seem to tower so defiantly across the lucid waters of the lovely Lake McDermott.13

His exploits in Glacier at that time were so remarkable that they warranted a press release from the National Park Service:

HE CLIMBS A MOUNTAIN A DAY DURING 36 DAYS OF HIKING, ESTABLISHING A WORLD RECORD

Washington, D.C., Sept.—Norman Clyde, 38, a small-town schoolmaster of Weaverville, California, climbed 36 mountain peaks, one each consecutive day, during his recent camping hike through Glacier National Park. On the summits of eleven of those 36 mountains he failed to find evidence of any one else ever having scaled them.

This amazing feat in mountain climbing, it is believed, sets a world’s record. So far as information in the possession of the Bureau of National Parks is concerned, no single mountaineer ever accomplished any such feat as this.

Clyde is a member of the Sierra (a mountaineer) Club of San Francisco. He left Glacier Park and returned to California August 25th, the day after he scaled the last of the 36 mountains. This was Mt. Wilbur, 9,283 feet, which he regarded as the most difficult of them all. He left as his cairn, on this peak, a monument to the late Dr. Wynn, of Indianapolis, Indiana, a mountain climber of national repute, who had made unsuccessful attempts to scale Mt. Wilbur.

This monument Clyde heaped up in three hours. He used loose Argyllite rocks he found on the summit, and built a pyramid seven feet high and six feet at the base. Through field glasses this mountain peak monument is visible to tourists from the veranda at Many Glacier Hotel.

Following are the other ten of the 36 mountains Clyde climbed, upon which he failed to find any record of previous ascents: Norris, Mt. Logan and also a pinnacle west of Logan, Almost-A-Dog Mountain, Citadel Mountain, Fusillade Mountain, main peak of Mount Rockwell, Mount Clements, Avalanche Peak, and Iceberg Peak.14

While the Office of Public Information of the National Park Service obviously delighted in Clyde’s accomplishments, using them to promote the park, Clyde felt compelled to set the record straight, even if it was only for his own records. A penciled notation on the press release, written in Clyde’s handwriting, states that the information was “not absolutely accurate. Probably a world record as far as solo climbing is concerned.”15

The summer of 1924 found Clyde back in Montana and Glacier National Park, where he climbed Mt. Merritt.16 It was yet another peak in a series of first ascents in Glacier, and one of nineteen on whose summit he stood that summer. After two seasons of climbing in the park he had ascended virtually every formidable and worthwhile peak that the region had to offer, with the exception of Kinnerly Peak, which he would climb for the first time (and for yet another first ascent) in 1937.17

At the end of each summer, he would return to California. As the summer of ’24 came to a close, Clyde began a new assignment in the town of Independence, east of the Sierra Nevada in Owens Valley. He brought with him a decade of teaching experience, a love of the mountains, and a dark and disturbing side of his personality that would emerge in the rain shadow of the Range of Light.

Norman Clyde

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