Earlier this year, the online magazine HIDDEN COMPASS awarded its 2024 Pathfinder Prize to Seattle firefighter and writer, Lance Garland and his team for their upcoming expedition to to explore the lives and legacies of some legendary queer mountain climbers. Now, it’s almost time for that expedition/project to begin its ascent up one of the most famous mountains in the Swiss Alps. “Beyond the False Summit: A Matterhorn Expedition to Unearth the Queer Pioneers of Alpinism” is scheduled to occur July 26th in Zermatt, Switzerland with Garland leading a team including writer Charlotte Austin, climber Jordan Cannon and photographer Ian Finch.
The project is led by Garland, an out gay man with a mission to spotlight and explore the stories of LGBTQ+ climbers from the past. Frequently, their stories have been buried in closets and “Beyond the False Summit” wants to unearth those stories and explore three primary questions with their project:
- How did queer climbers live when society told them only certain people could achieve great things?
- How do we document the history of queer people, when that very documentation has been, and can continue to be, a threat to their survival?
- By shining a light on this hidden part of history, can we write a more truthful narrative to reach a peak beyond the false summit of exclusion?
Three of the climbers to be spotlighted are famous names in mountaineering: Richard Halliburton, Geoffrey Winthrop Young, and George Mallory. Halliburton, youngest of the three, was an adventurer and travel writer who lived a fairly blatant gay lifestyle in the 1920s and 30s hobnobbing with film stars and celebrities and living the high life around the world. He died in 1939 while trying to cross the Pacific Ocean in a Chinese junk.
Geoffrey Winthrop Young and George Mallory were older and contemporaries of one another and possible lovers. Winthrop Young was described as “bisexual” in his biography while Mallory is usually referred to as “questioning” despite some comments of his that seem to indicate he did more than “question”. Mallory is famous for his death, while trying to summit Mt Everest in 1924…Mallory and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine were last seen alive only 800 feet from the summit with speculation that the pair may have actually made it to the top before perishing thus making them the first to summit Everest instead of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. There’s been more mystery about Mallory in more recent years after his body was discovered on the mountain in 1999 but then later disappeared.
Fascinated by these figures from the past, Lance Garland has stated:
“A huge reason I started this project was because I couldn’t find role models. I couldn’t find people like me.” He continues, “We want to share our personal stories and stories from the past with the public. It matters. These stories affect people’s lives.”
-Lance garland
Garland and the rest of the team hope to celebrate the diversity of mountaineering and the many LGBTQ+ adventurers both past, present and future.
Check out more about this fascinating project (and, to support it) at https://www.beyondthefalsesummit.com/
About the Author: Michael Strangeways
