Today we would call him an ‘adrenalin junkie’. After serving in the Royal Marines, he signed up for Shackleton’s disastrous Antarctic expedition. This sailed from London, in August 1914, just as Walter Weston was about to traverse Ōtenshō-dake.
Overnighting at the Tarōbō hut, they climbed the mountain on snowshoes as far as the sixth station and thereafter on home-made crampons screwed to the soles of their boots. The ice-axes came from a shop called Mimatsu at 8 yen apiece and they used parachute harness tape as a makeshift alpine rope.
The climb to the summit took twelve hours. To mark their high point, they tied to a rock near the summit hut the “aluminium foot-rest from the rudder-bar of an AVRO aeroplane …”
So there is a small mystery – has anybody ever found that “aluminium foot-rest” near the top of the Gotemba-guchi on Fuji-san? If so, I’m sure that it should be in a museum somewhere.
By the way, the account of these Fuji climbs was reprinted in Inaka vol 16, although it first appeared in the Japan Chronicle of February 19, 1922 – I doubt if Orde-Lees was a member of the MGK.
This was a somewhat frivolous digression. But there is a serious point to it. Orde-Lees’s Mt Fuji climb was a byproduct of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902–23). It was the military cooperation implicit in the Alliance that brought him to Japan. We like to think that our mountaineering floats somehow untethered above the lower world. But mountaineers are, in fact, swept along in the current of history like everybody else.
Speaking of that Alliance, between 1900 and 1923 no fewer than three of the British Alpine Club’s Presidents visited Japan, where of course the Japanese Alpine Club gave them a warm welcome. The most prominent, Douglas Freshfield (1845–1934) made a visit in October 1913 and climbed Myōgi. He too used Murray’s guidebook and consulted Walter Weston. Permit me to share some of his pictures…
Having survived the four-month wait to be rescued on Elephant Island, Orde-Lees joined the Balloon Corps on the Western Front. By the end of the First World War, he was an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, where he became an advocate for the use of parachutes. To prove their effectiveness, he once jumped from Tower Bridge into the River Thames.
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| Parachute pioneer: Orde-Lees plummets from Tower Bridge. |
After the war, he came to Japan to teach parachuting techniques at the Imperial Navy’s Kasumigaura airbase. It was during this assignment that he thought of climbing Mt Fuji in winter – under the impression that he would be the first to do so. Clearly, he was ill-informed: that honour already belonged to Nonaka Itaru (1867–1955), who had reached the top as long ago as February 1895. And, very probably, other foreigners had preceded Orde-Lees too.
Like Nonaka before him, Orde-Lees failed on his first attempt, after he and a companion met with a “hurricane”. This was in January 1922. On February 10 they came back, dragging a home-made sledge made from the wreckage of a crashed aeroplane.
Like Nonaka before him, Orde-Lees failed on his first attempt, after he and a companion met with a “hurricane”. This was in January 1922. On February 10 they came back, dragging a home-made sledge made from the wreckage of a crashed aeroplane.
Overnighting at the Tarōbō hut, they climbed the mountain on snowshoes as far as the sixth station and thereafter on home-made crampons screwed to the soles of their boots. The ice-axes came from a shop called Mimatsu at 8 yen apiece and they used parachute harness tape as a makeshift alpine rope.
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| Avro 504K, as cannibalised by Thomas Orde-Lees. Image courtesy of Kovozavody Prostejov. |
The climb to the summit took twelve hours. To mark their high point, they tied to a rock near the summit hut the “aluminium foot-rest from the rudder-bar of an AVRO aeroplane …”
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| Avro 504K: arrow indicates the "aluminium footrest from the rudder-bar". |
So there is a small mystery – has anybody ever found that “aluminium foot-rest” near the top of the Gotemba-guchi on Fuji-san? If so, I’m sure that it should be in a museum somewhere.
By the way, the account of these Fuji climbs was reprinted in Inaka vol 16, although it first appeared in the Japan Chronicle of February 19, 1922 – I doubt if Orde-Lees was a member of the MGK.
This was a somewhat frivolous digression. But there is a serious point to it. Orde-Lees’s Mt Fuji climb was a byproduct of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902–23). It was the military cooperation implicit in the Alliance that brought him to Japan. We like to think that our mountaineering floats somehow untethered above the lower world. But mountaineers are, in fact, swept along in the current of history like everybody else.
 |
| Rock pinnacles on Myogi. Plates from Douglas Freshfield's report on his Japan tour. Courtesy of the Alpine Journal. |
Speaking of that Alliance, between 1900 and 1923 no fewer than three of the British Alpine Club’s Presidents visited Japan, where of course the Japanese Alpine Club gave them a warm welcome. The most prominent, Douglas Freshfield (1845–1934) made a visit in October 1913 and climbed Myōgi. He too used Murray’s guidebook and consulted Walter Weston. Permit me to share some of his pictures…
2 comments:
It's always good to read about the exploits of Orde Lees. He was also a skier. I wonder if he skied in Japan and if there're written accounts?
As an aside, it always makes me smile that the Shackleton team voted to put him in the cooking pot first, if the need for cannibalism arose.
Iain - this time, thanks not only for reading and the amusing anecdote but for providing all the underlying material for this post, Orde-Lees and Freshfield combined. I think that Freshfield's visit is in the Japanese literature too, but perhaps not Orde-Lees. Yes, he was a character. Anyone into parachute jumping in those pioneer days must have had quite a nerve ...
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