The David A. Sowles Memorial Award is the American Alpine Club's highest award for valour, bestowed at irregular intervals on

mountaineer Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become sports ...

s who have "distinguished themselves, with unselfish devotion at personal risk or sacrifice of a major objective, in going to the assistance of fellow climbers imperilled in the mountains." It is named after David A. Sowles, a climber who died in the Alps in 1963. Notable recipients include the members of the

Third American Karakoram Expedition The 1953 American Karakoram expedition was a mountaineering expedition to K2, at 8,611 metres the second highest mountain on Earth. It was the fifth expedition to attempt K2, and the first since the Second World War. Led by Charles Houston, a m ...

for their attempted rescue of

Art Gilkey Arthur Karr Gilkey (September 25, 1926 – August 10, 1953) was an American geologist and mountaineer. He was born in Boulder, Colorado, to Herbert J. Gilkey (1890–1976) and Mildred (Talbot) Gilkey, and was raised in Ames, Iowa, where his fat ...

on K2 in 1953, Pete Athans, Todd Burleson and

Anatoli Boukreev Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev (; January 16, 1958 – December 25, 1997) was a Kazakh mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above —without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful as ...

for their part in the

1996 Everest disaster The 1996 Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10–11 May 1996 when eight expedition climbing, climbers caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach ...

Ed Viesturs Edmund "Ed" Viesturs (; born June 22, 1959) is an American high-altitude mountaineer, corporate speaker, and well known author in the mountain climbing community. He was the first American to climb all 14 of the eight-thousander mountains, and th ...

for two separate rescues on K2 in 1992, and

Simone Moro Simone Moro (born 27 October 1967 in Bergamo) is an Italian mountaineer known for having made first winter ascents of four of the fourteen eight-thousanders: Shishapangma in 2005, Makalu in 2009, Gasherbrum II in 2011, and Nanga Parbat in 2016. No ...

for his rescue of young mountaineer Tom Moores in 2001.

External links

Full list of recipients

References

American awards Mountaineering awards Mountaineering in the United States {{Award-stub