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| Courtesy: Rosemary Ryan-Testa |
Among climbers a ‘tiger’ seems to denote a young, dynamic, driven character who seems to be able to climb anything he’s pointed towards, showing scant regard for tradition or the reputation of others.
Valentine John Eustace Ryan seems to have burst upon the British climbing scene in the first decade of the 20th Century in just such a fashion. As Winthrop Young said of him ‘he climbed with an almost feverish energy and daring’. This was in an era well past the ‘Golden Age of Mountaineering’ when no new big climbs were being done in the Alps. Some exploration was being done on the Aiguilles and in the eastern Alps but the major figures of British climbing –Slingsby, Collie and Conway – were in the distant greater ranges. Into this scenario : ‘a young climber suddenly ranging up and down the whole length of the Alps for several seasons each year, making only the most difficult ascents, many of them new… a standard of rock technique altogether unprecedented,’..
He was 15 years old when he made his first mountain ascents – Pizzo Lucendro and Pizzo Fibbio in the St Gothard area, probably while on holiday with his family in the summer of 1898. Two years later he climbed Aiguille de la Za, Pic d’Artzinal, Ulrichhorn and almost summited on the Nadelhorn. In 1901 he climbed the Dom.
In the winter of 1901/02 the family was on holiday in Switzerland, possibly for health reasons. Val was on leave from the army. The father, writing to his brother in County Tipperary from the Grand Hotel, Locarno, states:
‘Bob (family name for Lionel) after a few days here found the place too dull for him so he went off alone – he crossed the Simplon in deep snow on a sleigh which upset two or three times on the journey – he then did some wonderful mountain attempts in winter …he has become quite notorious for his daring feats of climbing…’
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| Weisshorn |
The London Daily Mail reported the details:
‘The honour of the first important Alpine ascent of 1902 has been gained by Mr Ryan, an Englishman. (sic.) Accompanied by three guides, he left Zermatt on Friday and climbed to the summit of the Weisshorn, 14,805 ft., and returned safely today (12th). This is the first time the Weisshorn has been ascended in winter.’
Val, also, seems to have wanted some of the action. He and his mother went to Lausanne, where they were joined by Lionel. The two boys (19 and 17 years old) then went to Chamonix and ‘enjoyed a week in the snow there but the bad weather drove them back to Lausanne to their mother who was waiting anxiously’. The week in the snow (as in Val’s Alpine Club candidate’s form) involved climbing the Aig. De l’M and Petit Charmoz; Aig. du Moine, and attempts on the Charmoz and the Aig. du Plan, which was stopped high up by bad weather. Lionel’s regiment went to India soon after that and he died there in April 1903. This was surely a climbing career cut short.
In 1904 Val began really to get going and must have spent his whole leave in the Alps’. (Young) The list of climbs, with Joseph and Franz Lochmatter, is impressive: (see IMEHS Journal Vol 3 for details): Rimpfischhorn; Charmoz traverse; Aig. Verte; Grèpon and Blaitière in one day; and others. See Frank Nugent's In search of Peak, Passes and Glaciers for further details.
Geoffrey Winthrop Young, who was a contemporary, likened him in many ways to the renowned Edward Whymper. He says, in 1949, that Whymper and Ryan ‘… were both for a few years in youth fired into something like heroism, inspired to pursue adventurous and almost romantic achievement, by the fascination of Alpine heights and by the physical satisfaction of climbing....Because of those years of enthusiasm in his youth, because of his exceptional prowess, and of the independent courage with which he attacked new spheres of difficulty and danger, Ryan’s name lives on among the Alps… We at least can realize, … what a novel mountaineering movement was launched during those few seasons at the start of the century, and what a leading role he himself played in the launching’
Valentine Ryan left little account of his climbs. He was not much given to writing and seems to have found it tedious. Some notes he was preparing for publication were mislaid by the person to whom they were given and he never rewrote them. Some fragments of a possible book of climbs are quoted by Young in the Climbers’ Club Journal. What is known of Ryan’s character is gleaned from Young’s account of dealings with him and observations of him as a fellow climber.
During the second war he was active in London as an Air Raid Warden ; and he was planning to revisit Ireland once again when he died in 1947.
