Harvard Mountaineering Club

The Harvard Mountaineering Club is an undergraduate organization of Harvard College. Founded in 1924, the HMC is one of the oldest college mountaineering clubs in the USA, with a long record of exploratory mountaineering.

The club was founded in November 1924, by Henry S. Hall Jr. In its early days the club would meet at the home of Mr. Hall, who specialized in the Canadian Rockies, and who was an influential figure in the American Alpine Club. While at college, club members would train for summer expeditions to the Canadian Rockies by climbing at the nearby Quincy Quarries in the fall and spring, and skiing and mountaineering in the mountains of New Hampshire in the winter. In 1927 the HMC, as it is known to its members, published its first journal, Harvard Mountaineering. This journal would go on to be published biannually for much of the life of the club, chronicling the climbs and exploits of the club members.

In 1929, a recent Groton graduate by the name of Henry Bradford Washburn arrived at the college. Washburn was already a mountaineer of some distinction, having climbed numerous peaks in the Alps with his brother and publishing books, including Among the Alps with Bradford in 1927. The royalties from this book and others allowed Washburn to purchase a Ford Model A, which was instrumental for the club. He managed to convince the USFS to issue the HMC a special use permit (still in existence) for a skier's hut on Mount Washington. Using the Model A, workers from the club managed to build a small cabin at the base of Boott Spur on Mount Washington. The cabin functioned as a staging ground for the club's mountaineering training and as a base for winter ski races against the Dartmouth Outing Club.

Up until the start of the Second World War, Washburn's passion for mountaineering and aerial photography propelled the club to new heights. He would use aerial photography to scout for new routes, and then convince Alaskan airplane pilots to drop HMC climbers off on a glacier. This practice gave rise to numerous first ascents of some of the highest mountains in North America, including the dramatic ascent and "escape from Lucania" in 1937, chronicled by HMC member David Roberts many years later in a book by the same name.

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