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Read about how we grade our hill and mountain walks and how we categorise our climbing activities.
Talk: The Icarus Ascent: Ghosts of the Matterhorn
Invited guest speaker Mike Lewis will talk about the The Icarus Ascent: Ghosts of the Matterhorn:
Seven men, seven stories, one mountain …
July 14, 1865: Seven men stand atop the Matterhorn, Switzerland’s most famous peak. Led by Englishman Edward Whymper, they have beaten a rival Italian party to attain the summit of ‘The Impossible Mountain’. Triumph turns to disaster on the descent when young Douglas Hadow, the novice of the party, slips and drags the Rev Charles Hudson, Lord Francis Douglas and guide Michel Croz 4,000 feet to their deaths. At least that is the conclusion of the official inquiry … The three left, Whymper and the father-and-son guiding team of old Peter and young Peter Taugwalder, only survive because the rope broke in mid-air between old Peter and Lord Douglas.
The fall on the Matterhorn remains the most notorious mountaineering tragedy of all; grisly speculation as to why the rope broke – or even whether it was cut – persists to this day.
‘The Icarus Ascent’, a new historical fiction novel by long-time journalist Mike Lewis uniquely allows those seven men, including the four who were lost, the opportunity to relate their stories in the first person – from beyond the grave. Based on true events in the countdown to tragedy, The Icarus Ascent tells of a tarnished prize; how safety, diligence and prudence were sacrificed in the pursuit of glory and how one moment of ill-luck ruined lives and reputations.
