Dougal Haston, (19 April 1940-17 January 1977), was a
ScottishScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
mountaineerMountaineering is the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, backpacking and climbing mountains. In Europe it is also referred to as alpinism, while in the Americas the term refers to a particular style of mountain climbing, that involves a mixture of ice climbing, rock climbing, mixed...
born in
CurrieCurrie is a suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland, situated 10 kilometres south west of the city centre. A former village within the County of Midlothian, it lies to the south west of the city, between Juniper Green and Balerno on the Lanark Road...
, on the outskirts of
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland. It is the second largest Scottish city, after Glasgow, and the seventh-most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas....
.
Early in his career he was to climb several new Scottish routes with
Robin Smith (climber)Robin Smith was a British climber of the 1950s and early 1960s. He died together with Wilfrid Noyce in 1962 on a snow slope in the Pamirs, during an Anglo-Soviet expedition, at the age of 23.- Life :...
. Climbs such as The Bat on the Carn Dearg Buttress of Ben Nevis was to help establish them as future stars. Smith was to tragically die in an accident in 1962 but Haston was to live on and realise their early promise.
Dougal Haston, (19 April 1940-17 January 1977), was a
ScottishScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
mountaineerMountaineering is the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, backpacking and climbing mountains. In Europe it is also referred to as alpinism, while in the Americas the term refers to a particular style of mountain climbing, that involves a mixture of ice climbing, rock climbing, mixed...
born in
CurrieCurrie is a suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland, situated 10 kilometres south west of the city centre. A former village within the County of Midlothian, it lies to the south west of the city, between Juniper Green and Balerno on the Lanark Road...
, on the outskirts of
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland. It is the second largest Scottish city, after Glasgow, and the seventh-most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas....
.
Climbing achievements
Early in his career he was to climb several new Scottish routes with
Robin Smith (climber)Robin Smith was a British climber of the 1950s and early 1960s. He died together with Wilfrid Noyce in 1962 on a snow slope in the Pamirs, during an Anglo-Soviet expedition, at the age of 23.- Life :...
. Climbs such as The Bat on the Carn Dearg Buttress of Ben Nevis was to help establish them as future stars. Smith was to tragically die in an accident in 1962 but Haston was to live on and realise their early promise. In 1970, with
Don WhillansDon Whillans was an English rock climber and mountaineer. Born and raised in a two-up two-down house in Salford, Lancashire, he climbed with both Joe Brown and Chris Bonington on many new routes, and was considered the technical equal of both. He was an apprentice plumber when he first started his...
, Haston was the first to climb the south face of
AnnapurnaAnnapurna is a series of peaks in the Himalayas, a -long massif of which the highest point, Annapurna I, stands at 8091m, making it the 10th-highest summit in the world and one of the 14 "eight-thousanders". It is located east of a great gorge cut through the Himalayas by the Kali Gandaki River,...
on an expedition led by
Chris BoningtonSir Christian John Storey Bonington, CBE is a British mountaineer.His career has included nineteen expeditions to the Himalayas, including four to Mount Everest and the first ascent of the south face of Annapurna....
and in 1975, with
Doug ScottDouglas Keith Scott CBE, known as Doug Scott is a British mountaineer famous for the first ascent of the Southwest Face of Mount Everest on 24 September 1975...
, he was the first to climb
Mount EverestMount Everest – also called Sagarmāthā , Chomolungma or Qomolangma or Zhumulangma – is the highest mountain on Earth, and the highest point on the Earth's crust, as measured by the height above sea level of its summit,...
by the south-west face, also on an expedition led by Bonington. His memorial in Currie mistakenly claims he was the first Briton to climb the north face of the
EigerThe Eiger is a notable mountain in the Bernese Alps, rising to an elevation of 3,970 m It is the easternmost peak of a ridge-crest that extends to the Mönch at 4,107 m , and across the Jungfraujoch pass to the Jungfrau at 4,158 m...
. In fact, this honour went to Bonington and Ian Clough in 1962, but Haston made the first ascent of the Nordwand by the
direttissima, or most direct route, in 1966 with Jorg Lehne, Gunther Strobel, Roland Votteler and Siegefried Hupfauer.
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
John Harlin was killed when a rope snapped (the ropes being used were chosen by Harlin although Haston had requested that they be thicker) and the route was subsequently named after him.
Fatal accident
Later, he became director of the International School of
MountaineeringMountaineering is the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, backpacking and climbing mountains. In Europe it is also referred to as alpinism, while in the Americas the term refers to a particular style of mountain climbing, that involves a mixture of ice climbing, rock climbing, mixed...
at
LeysinLeysin is a municipality of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, located in the district of Aigle.It is a sunny alpine resort village at the eastern end of Lake Geneva in proximity to Montreux, Lausanne and Geneva...
in Switzerland.
It was at Leysin, in January, 1977, whilst
skiingSkiing is a group of sports using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....
alone on the north-east face of La Riondaz to the Col Luisset that he was tragically killed by an
avalancheAn avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, from either natural triggers or human activity. Typically occurring in mountainous terrain, an avalanche can mix air and water with the descending snow...
. It appeared that he had been choked by his scarf. He is buried at Leysin.
Quotes
"In winter, the mountains seem to regain their primitive, virginal pride, and no more do the howling, littering summer masses tramp their more accessible slopes." — Dougal Haston quoted in Jeff Connors'
biographyA biography is a description or account of someone's life and the times, which is usually published in the form of a book or essay, or in some other form, such as a film. An autobiography is a biography of a person's life written or told by that same person...
(p 104)
"...that most impenetrable of big walls, the mind of Dougal Haston." — from a review of Connors' biography.
http://www.mountaineering-scotland.org.uk/nl/book50.html
External links