A Climbing Quiz

[Cartoon] Kendra Allenby

A Climbing Quiz (compiled by Bosley Sidwell and Ridley Prone)

Impress your belayer with your knowledge of nineteenth- and twentieth-century climbing history! No consultation permitted with outside sources, print or electronic. Choose your answers from the multiple-choice options below. Answers are available at the end.

1. How did Edward Whymper's first ascent party notify their competitors on the other side of the Matterhorn that they had got there first?

A. They built a 10-meter cairn.
B. They threw down rocks.
C. They created a flare by setting fire to a cloud of flatulence.

2. Which famous expedition included the following objectives: to summit a peak 40,000 and a half feet high; to "bring back a pair of each species of living creature found on the mountain in order to study the possibility of breeding mountaineers capable of living normal lives at high altitudes"; and "to collect new data on the effect of biochronical disastrification of the geneospherical pandiculae on the exegesis of Wharton's warple"?

A. Mt. Analogue.
B. Latok XIV.
C. Rum Doodle.

3. What is the longest known route climbed by two naked climbers?

A. The Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat.
B. The Naked Edge in Eldorado Canyon.
C. The Nose on El Capitan.

4. What did Charles Houston eat that made him ill and caused him to forego the attempt of the first ascent of Nanda Devi?

A. A can of corned beef.
B. A pound of Kendal Mint Cake.
C. Rocky Mountain oysters.

5. In 1973 Sibylle Hechtel and Beverly Johnson made the first all-female ascent of El Capitan. What was the original title of Hechtel's trip report for the American Alpine Journal (before it was edited)?

A. "An Easy Day for a Lady."
B. "Walls Without Balls."
C. "Miriam Underhill's Revenge."

6. After the death of four climbers on the Matterhorn in 1865, who said the following: "Reckless mountaineering is greater folly than gambling"?

A. Jane Eyre.
B. Charles Dickens.
C. Aleister Crowley.

7. What did Conrad Kain say atop Mt. Robson in 1924?

A. "Gentlemen, that's so far as I can take you."
B. "There, Lady!... You are the first woman on this peak—the highest of the Rocky Mountains."
C. "That's all folks!"

8. What does the name of the Alpine peak "Schreckhorn" translate to?

A. DreamWorksTM Mountain.
B. Ogre pinnacle.
C. Horror-horn.

9. Which early Himalayan mountaineer complained about some members of the Alpine Club (after hearing rumors that his own application would be rejected): "Various old fogeys who could not have climbed the simplest rocks in Cumberland or led across an easy Alpine pass, had been personally conducted by peasants up a few mountains and written themselves up into fame."

A. The Duke of the Abruzzi.
B. Sir Martin Conway.
C. Aleister Crowley.

10. What was Ridley Prone most known for?

A. Replacing belay commands with knock-knock jokes.
B. Serving as the doctor on the Rum Doodle expedition.
C. Planking on the summit of the Matterhorn.

11. Who is Bosley Sidwell?

A. A fictional character.
B. Steve Jervis.
C. An Alpinist writer, whose contributions have sometimes been mistaken for fantasy or humor.
D. All of the above.

[This story originally appeared in The Climbing Life section of Alpinist 69, which is now available in our online store. Only a small fraction of our many long-form stories from the print edition are ever uploaded to Alpinist.com. Be sure to pick up Alpinist 69 for all the goodness!—Ed.]

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