Geoffrey Winthrop Young

Geoffrey Winthrop Young, who lived from 25 October 1876 to 8 September 1958, was a British climber, poet and educator and the author of several notable books on mountaineering. Born in Kensington, the middle son of the classicist Sir George Young, he studied Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he began rock climbing and wrote a humorous guide to the college rooftops. Before the First World War he made new and difficult Alpine ascents, among them the Younggrat on the Zermatt Breithorn, the west face of the Weisshorn and, in 1911 with H. O. Jones, the Brouillard ridge of Mont Blanc and the first complete traverse of the west ridge of the Grandes Jorasses. He also opened routes in Northumberland, the Lake District and Wales, became president of the Climbers Club in 1913 and organised the Pen-y-Pass gatherings that advanced British rock climbing.