mapping the mountains Andrew Davies
© Biblioteca Nazionale del Club Alpino Italiano Eastern Alps and at scale of 1:25,000. Remarkably, almost all the sheets that were produced back then can still be purchased in their modern-day versions today. Since the 1930s the club has also been producing a number of maps outside Europe, most notably in the Andes and the Himalaya.
Expedition mapping became prevalent in the first half of the 20th century. Often these expeditions had a heavy focus on national pride and prestige and part of their remit was to bring back scientific data, invariably including a map. In 1906, the famous Italian explorer, the Duke of the Abruzzi, set out on an expedition to unveil the mystery of an obscure, cloud-swathed mountain range in Equatorial Africa called the Ruwenzori, only identified by European travellers 20 years previously. In a military-style campaign, his mission made several inaugural ascents, unveiled the topography of the mountains in the form of a map, and brought back scientific data of climatological, geological and botanical interest. Perhaps the most abiding takeaway from the expedition were the stunning photographs of the cloud-free mountains taken by Vittorio Sella.
Having lost out in the race to the North and South Poles, after the First World War, the British were hell-bent on conquering Mount Everest. At the time of the first reconnaissance mission in 1921, the mountain was described as‘ shy and retiring’ and had not been inspected from close-up. The main aim of this Britishled expedition was to create a detailed map of the mountain, and more specifically to identify assault routes for future attempts in the years ahead. The exceptionally concise map that resulted was credited to a young Canadian cartographer, Oliver Wheeler, who later went on to become Surveyor of India.
Many surveyors, like Captain Adrien Armand Durand in the French Alps, became accomplished mountaineers, often unnoticed, in the course of their day-to-day work. But the reverse was also true. Many mountaineers learned the art of surveying because it was part of the skills set they needed to help an expedition succeed.
Some like Bradford Washburn, went further. A Harvard graduate,
Washburn was one of the America’ s leading mountaineers in the 1930s and 1940s making several first ascents in the mountainous wastes of Alaska and the Yukon, where his modus operandi was opening up supply routes in inaccessible areas by plane. Washburn
carried out photographic reconnaissance or the terrain beforehand from the air, which gave him a super keen eye for the topography. In 1938 he was appointed director of the Boston Science Museum. Alongside mountaineering and photography, he struck out on another career path as museum curator and cartographer. With his unrivalled knowledge of Alaska, he entered into a collaboration with the Swiss mapping agency( now swisstopo) to produce the first detailed map of the Mount McKinley range( now Denali) in 1960. Incorporating many familiar Swiss cartographic features, it was the first time that the topographic service had ever printed a map outside Switzerland. In the 1970s, he spent the best part of a decade working with Swiss cartographers on a map of the Grand Canyon, which incorporated a depiction of relief which was unprecedented in its detail. The map was published in the July 1978 issue of the National Geographic. His magnum opus came towards the end of his
© Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research
life: a 1:50,000 map of Mount Everest made in collaboration with swisstopo and the National Geographic. Composed of data from 160 aerial photographs taken at an altitude of 13,000 metres and using historical and contemporary ground surveying, the project required the permission of the Chines and Nepalese authorities. The 1988 map was hailed as a masterpiece of Swiss mapmaking and marked the apex of Washburn’ s career as a cartographer. Almost 40 years later, its exquisiteness, practicability and historical value remain unsurpassed today.
It is perhaps impossible to imagine in our modern world of satellite navigation, where our mobile devices allow us to fix our location with pinpoint accuracy, yet mountaineering- or the simple pleasures of a walk in the mountains- would have been nigh on impossible without the mapmakers of yesteryear. The book, Mapping the Mountains, has been written in homage to the, often anonymous, surveyors and pioneers who braved hostile mountain environments to make it all possible. For publication details, go to: www. mappingthemountains. eu
14 OUTDOOR FOCUS Autumn 2025