Norman Clyde - Legacy

Legacy

Norman Clyde received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from his alma mater, Geneva College, in 1939. He received the college's Distinguished Service Award in 1962.

In 1947, the Sierra Club Handbook praised Clyde's mountaineering accomplishments: "Outstanding among members who have helped others gain mountain experience is Norman Clyde, whose amazing achievements in scaling practically all the peaks in the High Sierra are well known to mountaineers. More than one climber has exulted in a supposedly first ascent, only to find later that Clyde went up that 'unclimbed peak' in the winter of, say, 1920! There are many seasoned climbers who can look back on their early days as novices in the mountains and remember with gratitude what they learned from Clyde".

Jointly with Allen Steck, he was the first recipient of the Sierra Club's Francis P. Farquhar Mountaineering Award in 1970.

Clyde Minaret, Clyde's Ledge, Clyde's Meadow along the Mountaineer's Route on Mt. Whitney, and Norman Clyde Peak 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.

The Eastern California Museum in Independence has an extensive collection of memorabilia, documents and photos pertaining to Clyde's life on display. In the Wall Street Journal, Michael J. Ybarra described this exhibit as "absorbing".

Norman Clyde's life and mountaineering achievements were originally documented in the book, Close Ups of the High Sierra, published by La Siesta Press (Glendale, CA) in 1962. In 1998 Spotted Dog Press published an expanded edition of the book, Norman Clyde: Close Up of the High Sierra, edited by Wynne Benti. The foreword for the 1998 edition of Close Ups of the High Sierra included a brief biography on Clyde, written by Benti, and was the first time in history that any in-depth information was published about Clyde's wife, Winifred Bolster.

Clyde's life and mountaineering achievements were later documented in a biography written by Robert C. Pavlik and published in 2008.