Elizabeth Hawley (9 November 1923 – 26 January 2018) was an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, author, and chronicler of

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

n mountaineering expeditions. Hawley's '' The Himalayan Database'' became the unofficial record for climbs in the Nepalese Himalaya. She was also the

honorary consul A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...

in Nepal for New Zealand.

Biography

Early life

Hawley was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

in 1923. She was educated at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

and graduated with an honours degree in English in 1946. Having visited

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Provinces of Nepal, Province , subdivision_name1 ...

on a round-the-world trip in 1957, Hawley moved to Nepal full-time in 1959, giving up her job as a researcher for '' Fortune'' magazine in New York. In 1960 she started as a journalist and correspondent for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'', but later moved to the ''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

'' news agency in 1962. She covered the 1963 American Everest expedition that traversed

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow ...

. Her article on the death of the Nepalese prime minister made the front page of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. She socialized regularly with royalty and senior politicians in Nepal, on whom she reported for US media.

Climbing database

While she never climbed a mountain herself, Hawley was the best-known chronicler of Nepalese Himalayan expeditions from the 1960s onwards (she did not chronicle the

Karakoram The Karakoram is a mountain range in Kashmir region spanning the borders of Pakistan, China, and India, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Most of the Karakoram mountain range falls under t ...

Himalaya such as K2 or

Nanga Parbat Nanga Parbat ( ur, ) (; ), known locally as Diamer () which means “king of the mountains”, is the ninth-highest mountain on Earth, its summit at above sea level. Lying immediately southeast of the northernmost bend of the Indus River in ...

), and was respected by the international mountaineering community because of the accuracy of her records, and the tenacity of her investigations; winning her the nickname "The Sherlock Holmes of the Mountaineering World". Italian climber Reinhold Messner told '' Outside'', "If I need information about climbing 8,000-meter peaks, I go to her".

Sir Edmund Hillary Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached ...

, one of her closest friends (she was an Executive Officer for Hillary's Himalayan Trust), once called her "a bit of a terror". Hawley's detailed mountaineering records are summarized in '' The Himalayan Database'', and have been used both as a record of successful ascents, and also of establishing success rates and fatality rates, for climbers in the Nepal Himalaya. Having a Himalayan ascent logged on Hawley's database became an essential requirement for mountaineers, which lead to many famous disputes, including:

Awards and honours

In 2008, French ice climber François Damilano named a peak in Nepal after Elizabeth Hawley having made a solo first ascent of '' Peak Hawley'' (6,182 meters) in the Dhaulagiri Group on 9 May 2008. In 2014, the Nepalese State officially confirmed the naming of ''Peak Hawley''. She was the

in Nepal for New Zealand for 20 years up until her retirement in 2010, for which she received the

Queen's Service Medal The Queen's Service Medal is a medal awarded by the government of New Zealand to recognise and reward volunteer service to the community and also public service in elected or appointed public office. It was established in 1975 and is related to ...

in 2004. She was also awarded the Swiss King Albert I Memorial Foundation Medal in 1998 for services to mountaineering, and was the first recipient of the Sagarmatha National Award from the Government of Nepal. The former American ambassador to Nepal,

Peter Bodde Peter William Bodde (born October 1954) is a member of the United States Foreign Service, and was the 8th United States Ambassador to Libya. He has previously served as the United States Ambassador to Nepal and as the United States Ambassador to ...

, described Hawley as one of Nepal's "living treasures" and that "her contribution to the depth of knowledge and understanding between Nepal and the US was immense".

Bibliography

* * * *

Filmography

References

External links

Biography of Elizabeth Hawley (1923 – 2018)
''

American Alpine Club The American Alpine Club (AAC) is a non-profit member organization with more than 24,000 members. Its vision is to create "a united community of competent climbers and healthy climbing landscapes." The Club is housed in the American Mountaineerin ...

'' (13 February 2018)
"The High Priestess of Posterity"
'' Outside'' (2011)
Elizabeth Hawley (1998)
King Albert I Memorial Foundation Medal
The legacy of Elizabeth Hawley

Lonely Planet Lonely Planet is a travel guide book publisher. Founded in Australia in 1973, the company has printed over 150 million books. History Early years Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen Wheeler, Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In 19 ...

(2018) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hawley, Elizabeth 1923 births 2018 deaths People from Chicago Journalists from Illinois American women journalists Historians of mountaineering University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni Recipients of the Queen's Service Medal Honorary consuls Reuters people 21st-century American women