Nicholas Clinch
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- FA Gasherbrum I 1958
- FA Mount Vinson 1960
Nicholas Bayard Clinch III | |
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| Born | November 9, 1930 Evanston, Illinois |
| Died | June 15, 2016 (aged 85) Palo Alto, California |
| Occupations | Mountaineer, lawyer, author |
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Nicholas Bayard Clinch III (9 November 1930, Evanston, Illinois – 15 June 2016, California) was an American mountain climber, lawyer, author and environmentalist. Clinch Peak, in Antarctica, was named for him in 2006.
The son of Virginia Lee Clinch and Nicholas Bayard Clinch Jr., a colonel in the U.S. Air Force,[1] Nicholas "Nick" Clinch grew up in Dallas, Texas, and later attended the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. He graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in political science in 1951, then obtained a degree from Stanford Law School.[2] He followed his father into the Air Force, but due to his asthma and poor eyesight, was unable to qualify as a pilot. Instead, he worked as legal consul at the American bases in Iceland and Long Beach. He has one younger sister, also named Virginia Lee. He married Elizabeth ("Betsy") Wallace Campbell in 1964.[1] They had two daughters.[1]
Mountain climbing
While attending Stanford University, Clinch became a member of the Stanford Alpine Club and climbed extensively throughout the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite National Park.
He is the only American ever to have led a first ascent of a peak in excess of 8,000 metres (26,000 ft), which was achieved when his team conquered the world's 11th highest mountain, Hidden Peak (Gasherbrum I) in north-east Pakistan, in 1958.[1][3] He was a member of the American-Pakistani team which made the first ascent of Masherbrum, the world's 22nd tallest peak, in 1960.[4] He led the 10-man 1966–67 American Antarctic Mountaineering Expedition that made the first ascent of Mount Vinson, the summit of Antarctica, and other high mountains in the Sentinel Range.[1]
He was president of the American Alpine Club from 1968 to 1970.[5] He also made the first ascent of Tibet's Ulugh Muztagh, in 1985.[6] In addition to Antarctica, Pakistan and Tibet, he made numerous ascents and expeditions in the United States, British Columbia, Peru and China.[7]
Legal career
Clinch was trustee and then executive director of the Sierra Club Foundation from 1970 to 1981[8] and was an early member of the board of nature-focused consumers' co-operative Recreational Equipment, Inc.[3] In the 1970s, he represented the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, California.[1] He was a director of the Environmental Law Institute from 1980 to 1986.[8]
