Barry Bishop (mountaineer) - Later Career

Later Career

The loss of his toes marked the end of Bishop's technical climbing career, and in the late 1960s he refocused his energies on academics, enrolling in the University of Chicago's Ph.D. program in geography in 1966, assisting in high-altitude physiology studies, and planning and executing the field research for his dissertation, a cultural-ecological analysis of the Karnali Zone of western Nepal. The dissertation was eventually published in 1980 and in book form as Karnali Under Stress (1990).

Through the 1980s and early 90s, Bishop continued both his administrative duties with the National Geographic society as Vice Chairman and then Chairman of the Committee for Research and Exploration and Chief of the Geographic Liaison Office, and his research and service, leading Himalayan research expeditions in 1983 and 1985 and continuing to write for National Geographic. He retired in 1994 and moved to Bozeman, Montana.

On September 24, 1994, Bishop was on his way to deliver a lecture in San Francisco when he apparently veered onto the shoulder of the highway, lost control of his car, and was killed. He was survived by his wife Lila, who suffered minor injuries in the accident, and by his son Brent and daughter Tara. The National Geographic Society honored him posthumously with the Distinguished Geography Educator award in recognition of a life that "reflected National Geographic's mission of increasing and diffusing geographic knowledge."