his biography in Who’s Who in America, Norman Clyde described himself as an “expert on high altitude flora and fauna (Hudsonian and Arctic Alpine zones of the Sierra Nevada), geological history and structure of mountain ranges of Western U.S., ski mountaineering, classical scholar, linguist.”2 He could have added author, fisherman, teacher, mountain guide, rescuer, and recluse to the list. His unlikely mix of interests and accomplishments reflected a lifetime effort to combine bookish scholarship with wilderness experience, a love of learning with a zealous need for the strenuous life. This mix of ideas and action was the culmination of his lineage combining with opportunity and open space in the New World.
Among climbers and skiers his legend has outdistanced him; among the general population he has been forgotten. Clyde’s contributions to the exploration and description of the Sierra Nevada and to the field of mountaineering have been important and long-ranging, and deserve to be known by a wider audience. He was the first person to ascend more than one hundred and thirty peaks throughout western North America, literally standing where no other human being had ever been. He eventually climbed more than one thousand peaks in his lifetime, some several times over. He had a deep and abiding love of the outdoors, fostered at a young age in the woods of western Pennsylvania and Canada. As a teacher he shared his love of the natural world with others. His exploits as a searcher for lost climbers include some of the most dramatic stories of tragedy, triumph, and heroism that have ever taken place in the annals of California history. And, as a pioneer of a then obscure endeavor better known in Europe than in the United States, his record of accomplishments and his promotion of the sport bears examination.
Clyde lived in a world of dazzling granite and glacial ice, deep blue sky and ominously towering thunderheads. He was often alone in this rugged world with only the sound of the wind, his boots on rock and snow, and his slow, steady breathing. He left behind some weathered notes in makeshift summit cairns, his articles and photos, numerous entries in various climbing guides, and tangible memories among a number of friends and acquaintances. This is the story of Norman Clyde, mountaineer, nature writer, and guide.
CHAPTER 1
Seeking Out the Wild Places: Family, Boyhood, and Youth
Norman Asa Clyde was a descendant of Irish and American parents who had known hardship and deprivation firsthand. His father, Charles Clyde, was born in Antrim County, Northern Ireland, on May 9, 1856. By that time Ireland had long been in the grip of grinding poverty and food shortages that left more than one and a half million people dead or dying, with an equal number fleeing its shores for the New World. Charles Clyde’s parents would soon follow, immigrating to the United States at the beginning of the Civil War. They did not believe in education; they were rug weavers and descended from a line of shipbuilders. Prior to immigrating to Ireland, the Clydes had lived in Scotland and may even be descendants of the Bruce clan, a royal family that fought for Scotland’s independence from England.
Norman’s mother, Sarah Isabelle Purvis (“Belle”) was a native of Glade Mills, Pennsylvania, twenty-five miles north of Pittsburgh, where she was born on November 24, 1863. The Purvises were also of Irish descent but had long been established in America. Her ancestor John Watt was born in Ireland and had immigrated to the colonies in 1773. He served in the Continental Army as a Private Fourth Class under Captain Brisbane in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Several years later he fought in the Westmoreland Land Company Militia against the Indians.
Charles and Belle were married in Butler in 1884, later moving to Philadelphia, where their first son, Norman Asa, was born on April 8, 1885.1 Eight more children would be added to the Clyde clan over the years: two brothers and four sisters survived into adulthood, with one child dying of typhoid and one of tuberculosis. As the eldest son, it was expected of Norman to look after his younger siblings, and to shoulder much of the burden of helping with the daily chores: hauling water, chopping wood, filling the coal bins for cooking and heat, and tending to the flocks of chickens and geese that every household raised for eggs and meat.
Charles Clyde supported his family as a Reformed Presbyterian minister of the Covenantor sect. Such a life would have been devoted to Bible study, hard work, and few luxuries. Members of the Reformed Protestant Church (including the Covenantors) eschewed modern conveniences and big cities because they were deemed to have a corrupting influence on the moral character of its members; hence, the Clydes lived at the very margins of civilization, wresting a living from near-wilderness conditions while bringing the teachings of Jesus Christ to their backwoods neighbors. Charles flitted from church to church, seldom staying for more than a year at any one location. Norman was three when the family moved to Northwood, Ohio; at the age of twelve he was uprooted to Lochiel Township, Glengarry County, Ontario, Canada, where they lived in the country, eighty miles from Ottawa. For the next five years Norman reveled in the outdoor life of the Laurentian region, hunting and fishing and being home-schooled by his father, an energetic scholar who taught his son the Classics in their original Greek and Latin, as well as German, Spanish, and French. Young Norman would later pick up a book of Portuguese and learn the language on his own.
Charles Clyde died of pneumonia in Brodie, Ontario, on December 7, 1901, at the age of forty-six. He had contracted blood poisoning as a result of a cut sustained while repairing the church’s stained glass windows. His passing left sixteen-year-old Norman in charge of the family. From what little we know of Clyde’s early life and his later years, it was not a role that he relished. Being thrust into a position of responsibility at such an age is difficult for any child, let alone one for whom domestic chores and younger siblings were the cause of strife and irritation. In addition, he appears to have inherited almost all of his father’s wanderlust; with one exception, the rest of his family stayed close to home during their adult lives. Following Charles Clyde’s death, the family stayed on in Canada for two more years, eventually returning to western Pennsylvania to be closer to Belle’s family.
Norman’s lack of formal education did not hamper his quest for knowledge. Prior to enrolling in Geneva College, a small liberal arts school in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, he had to make up work that was deemed essential to his education. Knowledge was an important commodity to the entire Clyde clan. All seven of the surviving brothers and sisters attended college, and five earned at least an A.B. degree, which was highly unusual for the time. They each attended Geneva College while working to support themselves and their family. Sisters Sarah, Clara, Grace, and Eva all became teachers. Brother John had two years of college, and brother Arthur became a very popular high school teacher and coach in Morgantown, West Virginia. According to Norman’s niece, Vida Brown, “The two [Norman and Arthur] were always wrestling; their mother couldn’t control them, they were always going at each other’s throats.”2 Although a rough-and-tumble relationship between brothers is not uncommon, the intensity illustrates their commonly shared competitive nature and focused determination.
Following his makeup work, Norman pursued a degree in the Classics. He was on the staff of The Cabinet, the college’s magazine, and had two poems and several articles published therein. One poem, “A Winter Sunrise,” is worth reprinting here:3
The winter night has fled, and rosy morn
Has risen joyfully. An hour ago
The mounting sun, just passing the horizon,
Silvered the tall and silent pines, which rise
Above the eastern woods. It was a time
Of most impressive solemness. The gray
Twilight brooded over everything;
The long white slopes of snow enveloped fields,
The frozen lake and the old majestic woods.
The stars had disappeared; the sinking moon
Shone pallid through the bars of the western wood;
The