Raymond Leslie Burrows Colledge (May 26, 1922 - April 10, 2014) was a climber and mountaineer who was a member of the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English ...

1952

Cho Oyu __NOTOC__ Cho Oyu (Nepali: चोयु; ; ) is the sixth-highest mountain in the world at above sea level. Cho Oyu means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan. The mountain is the westernmost major peak of the ''Khumbu'' sub-section of the Mahalang ...

expedition and made the third British ascent of the North Face of the

Eiger The Eiger () is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that exte ...

in 1969.

Early life

Colledge was born in

Coventry, England Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

. He began climbing after his discharge from the RAF at the end of WWII.

Career

Colledge's guideless ascent of a number of difficult routes in the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, ...

resulted in an invite to join

Eric Shipton Eric Earle Shipton, CBE (1 August 1907 – 28 March 1977), was an English Himalayan mountaineer. Early years Shipton was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1907 where his father, a tea planter, died before he was three years old. When he was eig ...

's Cho Oyu expedition in 1952. The expedition included many climbers who would later form the successful Everest team in 1953. During the expedition, Colledge made the first ascent of a number of lesser peaks and was one of the test subjects who worked closely with the physiologist Griffith Pugh to test oxygen flow rates at altitude. At the time, the Cho Oyu expedition was seen as a failure, Shipton was replaced by John Hunt as leader for the

1953 Everest expedition The 1953 British Mount Everest expedition was the ninth mountaineering expedition to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and the first confirmed to have succeeded when Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit on 29 May 1953 ...

and Colledge wan not asked to join another expedition to the Himalayas. Colledge continued to climb in the UK and in the Alps. In 1969, in a two-week holiday from his job at Courtaulds in Derby, he made three difficult ascents that brought him to the attention of the British climbing community. Partnering Dan Boon, Colledge made an ascents of the Pear Buttress on Mont Blanc and the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses. Colledge then made the third British ascent of the 1938 route on the Eiger's Nordwand. Colledge went on to make many early British ascents of difficult Alpine routes with his friend and climbing partner, Dennis Davis."IN MEMORIAM - DENNIS DAVIS"
By Jim Gregson ''Newsletter of the Karabiner Mountaineering Club'', 19 February 2015 Colledge died April 10, 2014.

References

*Journal of the Midland Association of Mountaineers 1970 * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Colledge, Ray 1922 births 2014 deaths British mountain climbers Royal Air Force personnel of World War II