Bryant Leslie Vickery

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Biografie:
Leslie Vickery Bryant (1905-1957)
In December 1957, by the tragic death of L. V. (Dan) Bryant in a motoring accident, the Club lost one of its stout band of New Zealand members, and the N.Z. Alpine Club one of its best-known mountaineers.
As a result of his two periods of study in England, with vacation climbing here and on the Continent, and particularly through his inclusion in the 1935 Everest Reconnaissance Expedition, he was known to many members of the Club ; these, as well as many others with mountain interests who knew him, will feel that by his passing, at the age of 52, mountaineering has suffered a great loss.
Bryant chose secondary school teaching as a career and, after graduating Master of Arts at the Auckland University College, he took his first appointment at the New Plymouth Boys' High School in 1927. Here his proximity to Mount Egmont enlivened an interest in climbing. He introduced many boys from his school to the sport through his organised trips on the mountain and took more than ISO of them to the summit of this fine peak. Then from 1930 his teaching appointments were mainly in the South Island first at Waitaki Boys' High, then at Southland Boys' High, back to Waitaki as senior house master and then as first assistant at the Timaru Technical College. In 1946 he became principal of the Pukekohe High School, near Auckland, and filled that position, with credit to himself and great benefit to the school, until his passing on the eve of the annual prize-giving ceremony, for which he had prepared one of his typically thoughtful addresses.
It was during the period from 1930 to 1946 that he took full advantage of his sojourn within easy reach of the Southern Alps to indulge his enthusiasm for climbing. Even from Pukekohe he returned to the Alps at regular intervals for further first-class expeditions. He also took many school parties to Mt. Ruapehu, for climbing and skiing, as well as to the Hermitage region as an introduction to alpine conditions and grandeur. In December 1956 he undertook something much more ambitious by leading a party of boys and girls to the world festival of sport at the Melbourne Olympics, where their exemplary behavior won high praise for the Pukekohe High School and its principal.
Bryant's first serious climbing in the Southern Alps was in the 1930-1 season when he accompanied W. G. Mace and R. Syme, who had done several seasons of guideless climbing in the Hermitage region.
With them he made the third ascent and the first by a N.Z. party, of Mt. Haidinger, a good effort for his first ten-thousand-footer, and, with Syme, the fifth ascent of Mt. Tasman, making a new route up the Eastern arete of the greatest ice-peak of the Southern Alps. From this auspicious start, during the next twenty-five years he built up an impressive list of successful ascents, the most outstanding of which was his traverse of Mt. Cook, with C. L. Mahan, when their route to the Middle Peak was up the virgin North-east arete rising at a forbidding angle from the Anzac Peaks.*)
The 1933 Everest Expedition made a deep impresison on Bryant, and Everest no doubt was not entirely banished from his thoughts when, in 1934, he went to London for a year's study at the School of Economics and Political Science. Vacations were spent climbing in Britain and on the Continent. In the five weeks he spent in Switzerland his climbs, all guideless, included a double traverse of the Matterhorn from the Hörnli hut and back in 16!- hours. As the climb was made with a chance companion, an American student Paul Petzoldt, and neither had previously been on the Matterhorn, the time taken was remarkable. A few months after his return to New Zealand he was invited to join the Everest Reconnaissance Expedition of 1935 and so became the first representative of this country to go to the Himalaya for serious climbing. For this reason and because of his association with Tenzing, who was a young porter on the 1935 expedition, he must have experienced a quiet feeling of satisfaction and personal interest in the news that was flashed round the world of the success of John Hunt's Everest Expedition. In the 1935 expedition, despite his difficulty in becoming acclimatised, Bryant took part in ten successful ascents of peaks over 20.000 ft. and climbed to 23.460 ft. His failure to acclimatize put an end to any hopes he had of gaining a place in the 1936 expedition, but his contribution towards ultimate success on Everest was an important one, for he established a reputation for icecraftsmanship and toughness that played its part in the inclusion of other New Zealand Climbers in later expeditions.
In 1938 Bryant went abroad again, having been granted a Carnegie Educational Fellowship which gave him a year at London University. Once again there were no lost opportunities of joining in climbing trips and it was during this period that he made the acquaintance of many members of the Alpine Club, to which he had been elected in 1934. He was also a member of both the New Zealand and Swiss Alpine Clubs, and a life member of the Himalayan Club.
Much more could be written of Bryant's work for mountaineering and skiing, including the part he played in the launching of local clubs, of his participation in other sports such as athletics, rugby and golf, of his successes as a rugby coach, referee and administrator. To all these activities, no less than to his work, he brought that same infectious enthusiasm, the same relentless energy, the determination to succeed, the initiative to break with the orthodox and seek new ways, the cheerful good-humour and the competence that gave a sense of dependability when the going was tough, that marked his major mountain expeditions.
It was these qualities that made him a good mountaineer, and more than that, a delightful companion under any circumstances.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Vol. 63. Nr. 297, 1958, Seite 229-231


Geboren am:
1905
Gestorben am:
12.1957