Crowley is notable as the first Westerner to attempt K2 (8,611 meters), in 1902, with Oscar Eckenstein, and for leading an attempt on Kanchenjunga (8,586 meters). The latter expedition, although… Read more »
[Oscar Eckenstein] was the inventor of the modern crampon and the first to develop a shorter ice axe. Both of which made climbing ice dramatically more efficient and safer and though having evolved some, these are still in use today. Crowley and Eckenstein met in the late 1800’s and he immediately recognized the young Crowley’s potential as a climber and took him under his wing. Like Crowley, he was an admirer of the works of Sir Richard Francis Burton who Crowley would later canonize a saint of the EGC.
Aleister Crowley’s mountaineering expedition to K2 features in National Geographic magazine’s interview with Mick Conefrey, author of The Ghosts Of K2… The first attempt on K2 was surely the most… Read more »
Mick Conefry describes the occultist Aleister Crowley as being among many sent mad by the treacherous mountain… 28 November 2015 The Ghosts of K2: The Epic Saga of the First… Read more »
In an otherwise surprisingly well-informed and well-written article on Everest, the Daily Express manages to crowbar-in a reference to Aleister Crowley: Hard times, hard men. The distinguished mountaineer and prominent… Read more »
A new book on Jules Jacot Guillarmod, the mountaineer and photograph of the Himalaya expeditions of 1902 and 1905, led by Oscar Eckenstein and Aleister Crowley respectively, has been published:… Read more »