Robinson Robert

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Biografie:
Sir Robert Robinson 1886-1975
Sir Robert Robinson's interest in mountaineering, and mountains, was very much greater and occupied much more of his earlier life than most of his scientific colleagues ever suspected. Lady Gertrude Robinson was an almost constant companion on these expeditions, and most of their Christmas and Easter holidays until the beginning of the Second World War were spent climbing in Britain. This included climbing on both rock and gritstone, or snow in winter, fell walking and general mountaineering. The Robinsons enjoyed the mountains enormously and were very experienced mountaineers. They had several near escapes, and on one occasion Sir Robert fell down a crevasse. His companions pulled hard on the rope-it did not move and they thought they were holding him-but to their surprise he suddenly appeared, having chimneyed out of the crevasse unaided. The rope was frozen into the snow.
Robert Robinson was only 17 when he was introduced to mountaineering by J. Morton Clayton, a member of the Alpine Club, with a traverse of the Wetterhorn. In the next 8 years, until he moved to Sydney, he spent almost every summer in the Swiss Alps in the Arolla-Zermatt-Saas Fee area, and climbed almost all the major peaks including the Dent Blanche and the Dufourspitze. On one of these occasions he met Edward Whymper, and accompanied him on the walk down from Zermatt to St Niklaus.
While at Sydney one of the great attractions was the New Zealand Alps, which had been little explored at that time. In the summers of 1913-1916 the Robinsons ascended Mounts Wakefield, Malte Brun, Annette and Footstool, and made the first guideless ascent of Mount Sealy. With Conrad Kain, the remarkable Austrian guide, the Robinsons climbed the Aiguille Rouge. The next day Sir Robert, with 3 others and Conrad Kain, made the second grand traverse of Coronet Peak and the first ascent of Mount Meeson, which he has described as 'very easy'.
After returning to Britain, via the Canadian Rockies where only walking proved possible, the Robinsons confined themselves to climbing in Scotland and the Lake District, both in summer and winter, until 1920 when a summer in the Pyrenees began an almost unbroken series of Alpine climbing holidays until 1939.'These were mainly in the Swiss Alps, and included ascents of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, occasional visits to the French and Italian Alps, and 2 visits to Norway.
In all, Sir Robert made over 100 ascents of Alpine peaks. His mountaineering activities, in more recent years, consisted mainly of hill and pass walking. He climbed Piz Julier when he was 70, and his last climb, of Table Mountain in South Africa, was in 1966. He was elected to membership of the Rucksack Club in 1920, and to the Alpine Club in 1949.
Dr Morin Acheson (Canadian Alpine Club)
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 81, 1976, Seite 271-272


Geboren am:
1886
Gestorben am:
1975