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Norman Clyde (April 8,1885–December 23,1972) was a famous mountaineer, nature photographer, and self trained naturalist. He is well-known for achieving over 130 first ascents, many in California's Sierra Nevada and Montana's Glacier National Park. He also set a speed climbing record on California's Mount Shasta in 1923.

Clyde was born in Philadelphia, the son of a Presbyterian minister. He attended Geneva College graduating in the Classics in June 1909. After teaching at several rural schools, including Fargo, North Dakota and Mount Pleasant, Utah, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley in 1911. After two years of graduate work he returned to teaching, mostly in northern California. On June 15, 1915, Norman Clyde married Winifred May Bolster in Pasadena, California. Winnie was a nurse at a tuberculosis hospital, and contracted the disease herself. After 4 years of suffering she died at age 28 in 1919. His wife's death appears to have profoundly affected him as he moved to the Eastern Sierra to spend much of his latter life alone.

Clyde spent many summers traveling about in the Sierra Nevada, bagging first ascents. He served as climbing leader at Sierra Club base camps where he became known as "the pack that walks like a man" because of the huge backpacks he carried. In addition to as many as five cameras, he carried a hammer and cobbler's anvil in order to make field repairs to client's boots.

He became principal of the high school at Independence, California in 1924, but resigned in 1927. He was accused of firing of a gun during a discussion with some students who came to vandalize the school on Halloween night. Subsequently he spent his winters as the caretaker of the local lodges, including Glacier Lodge on Big Pine Creek, and a fishing cabin which belonged to Lon Chaney, Sr.

Clyde also made ascents and first ascents (and attempts) around the world including the Tetons, the Canadian Rockies and traveled to Alaska and the Himalaya. He traveled more extensively than the Sierra and did encounter US and extra-US counter parts in those ranges.

Clyde lead or participated in many mountain rescues and is credited with saving a number of lives. He said of himself, "I'm like the village half-wit who could always find Old Bes the cow when nobody else could. I just imagine where I'd go if I were Old Bes – and then I go there." He also helped in many recoveries and is remembered for discovering Pete Starr's body on the Minarets, in 1933, after all other searchers gave up. Clyde buried Starr's body where he found it on Michael Minaret.

Norman Clyde still guided parties into the Sierra into the 1960s, when he was in his seventies. In the 1950s and 1960s, he lived by himself at the old Baker ranch-house on Baker Creek near Big Pine, Inyo County. Because he was trained in the classics, Norman Clyde loved to read books in Latin and Greek. At the Baker ranch-house, Clyde had thousands of rare classical books. At age 80, he was still sleeping outside the ranch-house on a mattress and sleeping bag, as long as it was fair weather. In the spring of 1968, he transferred to a skilled nursing facility in Bishop where he could receive adequate care. He died in Bishop at age 87, surrounded by the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada that he loved so much.

Clyde Minaret, Clyde's Ledge, Clyde's Meadow, and Norman Clyde Peak (one of the Palisades) bear his name. His ashes were scattered from Norman Clyde Peak by Smoke Blanchard, his son Bob Blanchard and a party that included Jules Eichorn.

References

1. Eichorn, Arthur Francis, Sr. (1954). Record Ascents and the 1925 Marathon. Mount Shasta Herald. Retrieved 2008-02-25. {{cite book}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. "Norman Clyde Papers". The Bancroft Library. BANC MSS 79/33 c. Retrieved 2008-11-06.
3. Secor, R. J. (1999). The High Sierra, Peaks, Passes, and Trails. Mountaineers Books. ISBN 0-89886-625-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
4. Alsup, William (2001). Missing in the Minarets, the search for Walter A. Starr, Jr. Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Association. ISBN 1-930238-08-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Bibliography

• Clyde, Norman (1998). Close Ups of the High Sierra. Spotted Dog Press. ISBN 0-9647530-3-0.
• Clyde, Norman (1971). Norman Clyde of the Sierra Nevada; Rambles Through the Range of Light. Scrimshaw Press. ISBN 0-912020-19-9.
• Pavlik, Robert C. (2008). Norman Clyde, legendary mountaineer of California's Sierra Nevada, 155 pages. Heyday Books, Berkeley, California; and Yosemite Association, Yosemite National Park, California. ISBN 978-1-59714-110-9.

External links

• Galic, Hrvoje. "Lonely Grave in the Sierra". Retrieved 2008-02-25.
• Alsup, William. "The Search for Peter Starr". Retrieved 2008-02-25.

• 1885 births
• 1972 deaths
• American mountain climbers
• Sierra Nevada
• Geneva College alumni