O'Connell Kevin John

(Bearbeiten)

Biografie:
Kevin John O'Connell 1943-1983
When an avalanche swept through the Base Camp of his expedition, killing him and two companions, Kevin O'Connell had been a member of the Alpine Club for less than one year. In 1983, when he applied for membership, I was asked to support his application as one of the very few people in Britain who had had the pleasure of meeting him.
We met first in May 1981 at Bled in Jugoslavia. The occasion was the 30th anniversary of the founding of the UIAA Safety Commission and he was the new representative from the Alpine Club of Canada. By chance we were sharing a room in the hotel and one quickly gets to know one's companion in such a situation. Later, in 1982, we also shared accommodation in a Swiss army camp near Zurich during the following year's meeting.
Neither of these occasions offered the opportunity for us to climb together but we swopped many yarns about mutual friends and our exploits with them. It was clear to me from these contacts, and from discussions with some of those mutual friends, that Kevin was a dedicated mountaineer and a good and supportive team member.
More than this, though, he was also very interested in advancing the frontiers of safety for mountaineers. This is not an uncommon quality in Europe where there are many manufacturers of mountaineering equipment and much activity in the field of mountaineering safety. In North America, and Canada in particular, such a person is much more on his own and must be almost totally self-motivated. This challenge Kevin had taken in his stride. He was Chairman of the Technical Committee of the Alpine Club and under his leadership they were pursuing an active programme of work.
By profession he was a Physics teacher and he brought an incisive scientific approach to his mountaineering safety work. He also brought fresh ideas to the UIAA Safety Commission and was particularly interested in the study of fatigue brought about by the inadequate protection afforded by many models of snow goggles. His latest results on this subject had been expected by the Safety Commission at their meeting in September 1984. His unexplained absence at the time was a puzzle. Only one month later did we learn of his sad death.
George Steele
The following unattributed piece has also been received:
Kevin O'Connell was killed on Huascaran in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru in July 1984; an intense and prolific climbing career was brought to an end. Widely known in Canada as a mountaineer, lecturer, writer and administrator, Kevin, President-elect of the ACC, was 40.
Peru last summer, following an Haute Route Alpine ski traverse in May, was a shakedown for a winter Himalayan trip to Tilicho Peak. This typified his systematic working of the peaks and seasons that had gone on since student days. In the years since meeting him in 1970, I saw, and participated to a limited degree, in a relentless broadening of his activity: a progression from local climbing in Quebec and NE Canada, to the Canadian Rockies, European Alps, Mexico, the Yukon, Alaska, Andes and the Himalaya with which he became obsessed.
While never aspiring to the leading edge of mountaineering development, his main impact was in exploring new areas, principally Baffin and the St. Elias, and in the sheer volume of routes done. This urge to get to remote places and climb everything feasible in sight dominated his outlook and his life, and there are many of us who were willingly tangled in his organizational webs. Few have such a single-minded drive to optimise their time in the mountains. Intensity of this kind, and the recognition it brings, are often best admired from afar. Close up it makes for exacting schedules, exciting tempestuous living, and those endless trips away; an amalgam that his wife Christine MacNamara seemed to handle so well.
Few, too, combine action and administration concurrently, Kevin always did, he ran whatever bureaucracy he was in; McGill Outing Club, Montreal Section ACC, Eastern Vice-President ACC, President-elect ACe. His enthusiasm for these tasks seemed endless, and he ran things well, with an inimitable if sometimes infuriating style. An endearing quality was his interest in and availability to others. He was always willing to ferry someone to the airport, advise on the best deal in town or take another newcomer climbing.
There are many viewpoints on what to do with mountain experiences; Kevin's was clear: communicate them to the world. In his early years, climbing instruction in Quebec and in the Rockies with army cadets gave way to climbing lectures and a journalistic output of articles. I counted 23 in the Canadian Alpine Journal alone since 1978, including an incredible 11 articles in the 1984 edition. To a considerable extent, then, his autobiography is likely there on your shelf. His engineering background led to a keen and critical interest in the mechanics of protection. Characteristically, he carried out extensive equipment testing and served on the ACC and UIAA safety committees. In his climbing, though, the evolution was towards the big mountains, away from the cocoon of gadgets.
In Zermatt, weeks before his death, Kevin and I spent an hour in the churchyard there, discussing risk taking, among the climbers' tombs. Fresh from our ski mountaineering exploits we concurred, with what I suppose is a conventional climber's view, that the enterprise transcended the dangers. Today, some months after Kevin, Carl Lund and Dave Findlay were swept away, I feel less sure. The increased risks we run in the great mountain ranges and their consequences for those left behind have to be faced again in a grimmer light.
But I cannot end this in middle-aged sorrow for my friend. Rather let us remember the raw enthusiastic dynamism and uncomplicated vision of this exceptional man; and that damned knack he had of keeping just that little bit ahead on the approaches!
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 90, 1985, Seite 289-291


Geboren am:
1943
Gestorben am:
1983