In Search of Peaks, Passes & Glaciers: Irish Alpine Pioneers

No goggles or glacier glasses, no hi-tech axes or day-glo Gore-Tex adorned the Alpinists of the mid-nineteenth century. The achievements of Irish mountaineers from the 1850s to the early twentieth century are largely obscured in British historical accounts. This book sets the record straight. Nugent, mountaineer-explorer, reveals a significant Irish contribution beginning with the Golden Age of Alpine Mountaineering when the first ascents of mountains like the Eiger and Weisshorn and the first traverse of the Matterhorn from Italy were by Irish climbers. Significant climbers of the time were John Tyndall, a scientist; John Ball, the first president of the Alpine Club who led the popularisation of the sport with a series of guidebooks; Anthony Adams-Reilly who produced the first reliable map of the Mont Blanc massif; Elizabeth Whitshed, a pioneering woman mountaineer and one of the first to engage in winter Alpine climbing; and Valentine Ryan, often considered the finest Alpine climber of the early twentieth century.