HMC Looks to Far Horizons

When twenty-five members of the Mountaineering Club withdraw this weekend to their Spur Cabin retreat on Mt. Washington and wait for the new term, it will be just another in a long series of such excursions which has marked HMC activities in recent months.

Largest and most well-known organization of its kind in the country, the Mountaineering Club has been increasingly active since the end of the war, and future plans call for expeditions and training that will make previous jaunts pale by comparison, according to William L. Putnam '45, secretary of the Club's advisory council.

Will Scale Peruvian Andes

Tentative plans for next summer include trips by club members to the 19,000-foot Mt. Huagoruncho in the Peruvian Andes, and to the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia. HMC members conducted a two-week reconnaissance trip of Mt. Huagoruncho in 1941, and they are looking forward to scaling it this time, Putnam says.

The Mountaineering Club was founded in 1924 under the guidance of Henry S. Hall '19, who has since become an honorary member of the American Alpine Club, one of the highest distinctions possible for American mountaineers. Interest in hill-climbing was not found lacking among students at that time, and, since the HMC offered to train tyros from the earliest fundamentals if they showed the necessary interest, the Club rapidly developed. Today, there are more than 150 active members of the HMC, of whom 50 are in the College.

Climbed World's Second Highest

In addition to its own expeditions, the most famous of which was the seven-man HMC trip to Mt. St. Elias in Alaska last summer the Harvard Mountaineers have participated in many of the most important large-scale expeditions of recent years. In 1938, several Club members joined the American Alpine Club's reconnaissance trip to K2 in the Himalayas. K2 is the second highest mountain in the world.

In announcing the plans for increased training programs this spring, Putnam, who is a former president of the HMC and a member of the American Alpine Club, stressed the fact that no HMC man has ever been hurt while on a Club trip, and that students totally ignorant of the rope and rock techniques are welcomed by the Club, if they show some interest in mountain-climbing.