Page 10 - 2019 AMA Summer

AMAHQ
TONY STREATHER
1926-2018
By Meryon Bridges
The funeral of Tony Streather on 1 December 2018 marked the end of an era of mountaineering and the sad passing of our Honorary President.
In his stirring eulogy, Sir Chris Bonnington highlighted Tony’s extraordinary climbing career, extending from the Norwegian
expedition to Tirich Mir, 7708m, in 1950, during which Tony summited with absolutely no previous mountaineer- ing experience, to his leadership of the successful Army Everest expedition in 1976.
Tony’s climb of Tirich Mir was never intended to happen, neither did he have any proper equipment with which to do it, walking in to the mountain as the transport officer in a pair of Pakistani sandals. The Norwegians had to persuade him, that If he really wanted to accompany the porters for whom he was responsible up the mountain, he should wear a pair of Army hobnailed boots he had with him, and it was wearing these and Army fatigues that he made a first ascent with the expedition leader, Arne Naess, and Henry Berg.
In 1953 he was considered for selection for the team which first climbed Mt Everest, but was rejected on the basis of lack of Alpine experience/technical expertise, even though physically he out performed most of the other candidates. It is ironic that he was immediately invited to join the American expedition planning to climb the Abruzzi Spur on K2 the same year, which is a far harder and steeper route, and the climb was to be conducted by just eight climbers with no Sherpas in support. Things went well initially and they reached the famous shoulder in very good time, but it all started to go wrong when a big storm blew in. (This was where, in similar cir- cumstances, five out of seven climbers, in
three separate expeditions, died in 1986). For ten days they were pinned down in Camp VIII at 7700m. During this time one team member, Art Gilkey, suffered an attack of thrombo-phlebitis, a blood clot in his leg, which was both life threatening and completely immobilizing. Despite an almost hopeless situation, his team mates
‘Tony was now recognized as a first class mountaineer, with serious Himalayan experience’
were determined to do what they could to save him, and the retreat began on 10 Aug, the seven dragging Art down wrapped in a bundle of sleeping bags. Just as they were approaching Camp VII, at the start of a particularly difficult traverse across a steep ice slope, one of them slipped. He pulled off a separate rope of two others, who pulled off more, until all but one, Pete
Tony on Tirich Mir
Schoening, were heading for base camp. In a supreme achievement Schoening managed to hold all seven. Badly shaken, they tied off Art while they went over to the camp to get more equipment to bring him across. When they came out, he was gone, taken by an avalanche. It took the shattered survivors another four days to get down to Base Camp.
10 / ARMY MOUNTAINEER
On Kanchenjunga