Paul petzoldt biography
- Born in 1908, Paul Petzoldt faced difficult times as a child.
- Paul Kiesow Petzoldt (January 16, 1908 – October 6, 1999) was an American mountaineer and wilderness educator known for establishing the National Outdoor.
- Paul Petzoldt was a pioneering North American climber and founder of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).
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Publication Year: 2000.
PAUL KIESOW PETZOLDT 1908-1999
Legendary mountaineer, educator and conservationist Paul Kiesow Petzoldt died in Maine on October 6.
From the moment of his birth on January 16, 1908, Paul’s character was forged on an anvil of resourceful poverty with a view. He was the youngest of nine children on an Iowa homestead; lost his father, Charles, to diphtheria in 1911; accompanied his mother, Emma, on the family trek to the promise of farming in the Magic Valley in Idaho; and endured the consequent lack of financial security that dogged them.
Paul was pretty much self-supporting by 1923 when, at the age of 15, he rode the rails across the country and back. At 16, he found his true destiny during an ill-conceived yet successful ascent of the Grand Teton in Jackson’s Hole, WY. His was only the fourth or fifth ascent of the peak. He loved to tell this story, and does so in his 1995 book, Teton Tales. His appetite for mountain adventure was irrevocably whetted by an experience that might have put most people off climbing for life. “If hypothermia’d been in the
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Paul Petzoldt; Pioneering Mountaineer, School Founder
By his own definition, Paul Petzoldt was a contradiction in terms.
“There are old climbers, and there are bold climbers,” he said, “but there are no old, bold climbers.”
Petzoldt, however, was an old, bold climber. In 1994, when he was 86 and suffering from glaucoma, he tackled Wyoming’s formidable Grand Teton to commemorate the 70th anniversary of his first trek to the top of that 13,766-foot peak.
He made it to 11,000 feet and decided that was enough for a blind octogenarian, even if he was Paul Petzoldt, the legendary climber considered king of winter mountaineers.
Petzoldt, who had a ridge of the peak he so loved to climb named after him, died Wednesday of prostate cancer at a nursing home in Topsham, Maine. He was 91.
He was a celebrated alpinist who pioneered a number of mountaineering techniques. As founder of the National Outdoor Leadership School, he also was called the father of wilderness education.
Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who worked with Petzoldt on environmental legislation, called the clim
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On Belay: The Life of Legendary Mountaineer Paul Petzoldt - Softcover
Synopsis
* Paul Petzoldt was a pioneering North American climber and founder of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS)
* Details an adventurous, wild, and long life
* Drawn from 30 years of personal association and extensive interviews
There are old climbers and there are bold climbers, but there are no old, bold climbers. This familiar saying, coined by legendary climber Paul Petzoldt, is one he lived to disprove. When he passed away at the age of 91, Petzoldt's career was marked by decades of achievement in climbing, incomparable passion for outdoor education, wanderlust, and a relentless drive for adventure.
Petzoldt's name is synonymous with the Grand Tetons and NOLS, the highly respected outdoor school that he founded. Blazing the trail for an international code of wilderness ethics and safe climbing techniques, Petzoldt devised the voice signaling system that begins with On belay!
This intimate biography details Petzoldt's climbing career, including many first ascents in the Tetons, the first