In Memoriam
Crosby Ian Wallace Fox 1923-1957
As one of the most experienced and enthusiastic mountaineers in the Club’ Crosby Fox was a natural choice for the leader of the Y.R.C. Himalayan Expedition, To those of us who had known and climbed with Crosby, and had followed the fortunes of the Expedition, it came as a tragic shock to learn of his death in the Himalayas. While returning from a reconnaissance of the Phurbi Chyachumbu Glacier, the party was overwhelmed by a fall from an apparently stable ice-cliff overhanging the key passage of the glacier. Crosby and two Sherpas were killed and George Spenceley only narrowly escaped.
His climbing career was full and varied. Before I met him he had climbed in South Africa and he started his Alpine career at Meiringen in 1949 where he attended the second of the Alpine Club Training meets. From that time he always climbed guideless, sometimes with myself or D. G. Bennett of the J.M.C.S. and in later years with David Oxtoby and George Spenceley. His record of Alpine ascents over the years was long and varied, the list of difficult ascents continually punctuated by an easy route ascended usually for its incomparable view. The difficult ones were usually classics in their own right and never purely sensational gymnastics. Such routes as the Zmutt Ridge, Weisshorn North Ridge, Mont Maudit Frontier ridge, the Ryan-Lochmatter Ridge of the Aig du Plan and the Old Brenva Route, to name but a few, are of such stature as to command respect in any assembly of mountaineers but among them we find Le Besso, ascended for the view, Weissnollen, because he liked the name, and the Mitre de l’Eveque because it looked as if nobody ever bothered to climb it. In this he was rewarded by finding a bottle on the summit with the names of the only two preceding parties since it was first ascended.
As a mountaineer he was very fast and a sheet anchor of reliability. His energy and enthusiasm made it often difficult for ordinary men to keep up. I can only remember his once relinquishing the lead because he was physically incapable of leading farther and that was on the Ryan-Lochmatter, a route notorious for its demands on the endurance of the leader.
He was educated at Glasgow Academy and was an apprentice in the Merchant Navy during the war, subsequently obtaining the Master’s Certificate.
He married in 1956 and to his wife and parents we express our sympathy in their loss.
We have lost a fine mountaineer and friend.
W. Kelsey.