UKC

Garmo Peak, Noyce and Robin Smith?

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 ericoides 05 Aug 2008
The Dictionary of National Biography claims that Noyce (and Robin Smith) died on "Garmo Peak (c. 21,500 ft) in the Pamirs". Is this Mount Garmo, which is also called Stalin Peak, renamed Communism Peak in 1962 and is now called Ismoil Somoni Peak (7,495 metres or 24,590 ft); if so, why the height discrepancy? This article here http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1076596/in... claims that "21,800-foot Mount Garmo" is near "Pik Kommunizma, 24,590 feet", which was the goal of the expedition. Does anyone own a copy of Malcolm Slesser's ''Red Peak'' - this would sort it out?
 John2 05 Aug 2008
In reply to ericoides: This obituary http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-malcolm-slesser-4562... would suggest that Garmo Pek and Peak Communism are entirely different mountains.
OP ericoides 05 Aug 2008
In reply to John2:

So Mount Garmo and Garmo Peak are different mountains?
 John2 05 Aug 2008
In reply to ericoides: Where do you get your information that Mount Garmo was renamed Stalin Peak? All the sources that I've seen omit that piece of information.
 BenTiffin 05 Aug 2008
In reply to ericoides: Yes they are different mountains - Joe Brown's autobiography (The Hard Years) gives a chapter on the expedition.

Ben
 John2 05 Aug 2008
In reply to ericoides: That says that the peak was originally known as Garmo Peak, not Mount Garmo. Every other source I've seen gives different heights for Garmo Peak and Peak Communism (or Lenin). I would suggest that that source is mistaken. Maybe Wikipedia has the true explanation - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismoil_Somoni_Peak .
OP ericoides 05 Aug 2008
In reply to John2:

Thanks for that; I actually saw that page after I posted the question. The Columbia mistake has spread widely through online reference sources.
OP ericoides 05 Aug 2008
In reply to ericoides:

There's a new wiki page which sorts out the confusion - I trust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Garmo
morphus 05 Aug 2008
In reply to ericoides: well done, old boy.
maybe stephen fry would be interested for the next series of QI?
OP ericoides 05 Aug 2008
In reply to morphus:

Cheeky, but I'll have a word.
 Sean Kelly 05 Aug 2008
In reply to ericoides: I had the pleasure of meeting Noyce a few weeks before his tragic death, and still regard the death of Smith as probably the worst thing to happen to British mountaineering. God knows what he would have achieved if he had lived, probably the Eiger Direct without the Germans!
OP ericoides 05 Aug 2008
In reply to Sean Kelly:

Lucky you re Noyce. A. D. M. Cox says in his ODNB entry that he had an "almost diffident manner", and photos of the man seem somehow to support this.
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