Harvard Mountaineering Club - Washburn Years

Washburn Years

In 1929, a recent Groton graduate by the name of Henry Bradford Washburn arrived at the college. Washburn was already a mountaineer of some distinction, having climbed numerous peaks in the Alps with his brother and publishing books, including Among the Alps with Bradford in 1927. The royalties from this book and others allowed Washburn to purchase a Ford Model A, which was instrumental for the club. He managed to convince the USFS to issue the HMC a special use permit (still in existence) for a skier's hut on Mount Washington. Using the Model A, workers from the club managed to build a small cabin at the base of Boott Spur on Mount Washington. The cabin functioned as a staging ground for the club's mountaineering training and as a base for winter ski races against the Dartmouth Outing Club.

Up until the start of the Second World War, Washburn's passion for mountaineering and aerial photography propelled the club to new heights. He would use aerial photography to scout for new routes, and then convince Alaskan airplane pilots to drop HMC climbers off on a glacier. This practice gave rise to numerous first ascents of some of the highest mountains in North America, including the dramatic ascent and "escape from Lucania" in 1937, chronicled by HMC member David Roberts many years later in a book by the same name.

Another prominent club member in that era was Robert L. M. Underhill, a Harvard faculty member, who completed significant first ascents in the Alps, the Grand Tetons and the Sierra Nevada. He is credited with introducing modern Alpine belaying and rope handling techniques to mountaineering in the American west.