A man to match the mountains : a breezy biography of the life and mountaineering exploits of Glen Dawson on his100th birthday

A man to match the mountains : a breezy biography of the life and mountaineering exploits of Glen Dawson on his100th birthday

2012

This documentary tells the story of mountaineer Glen Dawson’s life as a mountain climber: background music plays while text and photos, many provided by Dawson himself, pass across the screen. The video chronicles Dawson’s early love of and exposure to mountain climbing, particularly in the Sierra Nevada mountains. An Antiquarian bookseller, Dawson’s father took him on a book-buying trip to Europe, at which time they climbed Jungfrau and the Matterhorn. In 1931, Robert Underhill introduced true rope management to the Sierra Club, of which Dawson was a lifetime member, and these rope techniques were important to his later climb up the eastern face of Mt. Whitney in August 1931. As a young man, Dawson climbed in Yosemite and the Palisades, scaling a then unnamed peak that he and his companions christened “Thunderbolt Peak” after a close call with a storm while at the top. Photographed by and trekking alongside Ansel Adams, he continued climbing as a serious hobby throughout the 1930’s, later “retiring” to skiing. During World War II, Dawson served as a skiing instructor for officers and medical personnel. In 1973, Dawson was awarded the Sierra Club’s Francis P. Farquhar’s Mountaineering Award. The documentary concludes with footage from a 1934 climbing trip to Yosemite, with a voiceover from one of Dawson’s companions.

Creator: The Castle Press
Director: Kruska, Denny
Performer: The Castle Press

Mountaineering--United States
Sierra Club

English