Albert F. Mummery

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Albert Frederick Mummery (1855, Douvres – August 24, 1895, Nanga Parbat), was a highly respected British mountaineer.

He is best remembered for his pioneering climbs in the Alps. Initially he climbed with guides, but with his companions William Cecil Slingsby and J. Norman Collie was part of the movement, initiated by such climbers as Charles Hudson, that revolutionised alpinism by the practice of guideless climbing.

He put up a string of remarkable first ascents, most notably the Aiguille du Grépon (which features his eponymous crack), the Dent du Requin, the Grands Charmoz, the Teufelsgrat on the Täschhorn, and the Zmutt ridge of the Matterhorn (3 September 1879 with guides Alexander Burgener, J. Petrus and A. Gentinetta). In 1894, he led his friend, the young Duke of the Abruzzi, to the top of the Matterhorn by the same route.

Both Mummery and Burgener were repelled, however, whilst trying to make the first ascent of the much-coveted Dent du Géant in 1880, being forced back by some difficult slabs, provoking Mummery prophetically to exclaim 'Absolutely inaccessible by fair means|!'^[1]

In 1895, Collie, Hastings and Mummery were the first climbers to attempt a Himalayan 8,000 m peak, Nanga Parbat. On this pioneering lightweight expedition the mountain claimed the first of its many victims: Mummery and two Ghurkas, Ragobir and Goman Singh, were killed by an avalanche whilst reconnoitering the Rakhiot Face.and were never seen again. The story of this disastrous expedition is told in Collie's book From the Himalaya to Skye.

Mummery left behind him a legacy not only of some of the most well-regarded routes in the Alps, but also, in his book My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus, one of mountaineering literature's enduring classics.

[edit] References

Collie, Norman, From the Himalaya to Skye, Rockbuy Limited. ISBN 1-904466-08-7
Mummery, A. F., My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus, Rockbuy Limited. ISBN 1-904466-09-5