Tom Patey

Thomas Walton Patey ( born February 20, 1932 in Ellon (Scotland ), † 25 May 1970 in Whiten Head, Scotland ) was a British mountaineer.

Although he was a leading Scottish climber of his time, especially on winter routes, perhaps he is best known for his humorous songs and poems about climbing mountains, many of which posthumously in the anthology One Man's Mountains were published.

Life

Patey visited the Ellon Academy and Robert Gordon 's College in Aberdeen. He was interested in already as a scout for climbing, but only at the University of Aberdeen, where he studied medicine, he showed his full talent as an expedition climbers and became the Lairig Club before. Many of his early first ascents were on the Lochnagar and the adjacent Cairngorms.

He climbed extensively in Scotland, for example, he performed in 1965, the first winter crossing of the Cuillin ridge with Hamish MacInnes, David Crabbe and Brian Robertson. He, Rusty Baillie and Chris Bonington climbed in 1966 for the first time the Old Man of Hoy, which he repeated in a live broadcast of the BBC television on 8 and 9 July 1967. In 1967, Patey and Ian Clough climbed as the first Am Buachaille, a surf piers off the coast of Sutherland. He also undertook significant ascents in the Alps and the Karakorum, including the first ascent of the Muztagh Tower ( 7273 m) with John Hartog, Joe Brown and Ian McNaught -Davis in 1956 and Rakaposhi ( 7788 m) in 1958 with Michael Banks.

At the time of his death he worked as a general practitioner in Ullapool, in the far northwest of Scotland. When abseiling The Maiden, a surf pier at Whiten Head off the coast of Sutherland, he was killed.

Writings

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