Ulrich Kaufmann ( – ) was a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

mountain guide A mountain guide is a specially trained and experienced professional mountaineer who is certified by local authorities or mountain guide associations. They are considered to be high-level experts in mountaineering, and are hired to instruct or ...

. He was born and died in

Grindelwald Grindelwald is a village and Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli (administrative district), Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Berne. In addition ...

. He was among the first Westerners to visit the mountain ranges of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and the

Himalayas 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 100 ...

Biography

In August 1857, Kaufmann participated in the

first ascent In mountaineering, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in guide books) is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain or the first to follow a particular climbing route. First mountain ascents are notable because they en ...

of the

Mönch The Mönch (, German: "monk") at is a mountain in the Bernese Alps, in Switzerland. Together with the Eiger and the Jungfrau, it forms a highly recognisable group of mountains, visible from far away. The Mönch lies on the border between the ca ...

. In July 1856, the

Viennese Viennese may refer to: * Vienna, the capital of Austria * Viennese people, List of people from Vienna * Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna * Music of Vienna, musical styles in the city * Viennese Waltz, genre of ballroom dance * V ...

physician Sigmund Porges had climbed the

Jungfrau The Jungfrau ( "maiden, virgin"), at is one of the main summits of the Bernese Alps, located between the northern canton of Bern and the southern canton of Valais, halfway between Interlaken and Fiesch. Together with the Eiger and Mönch, the J ...

with the Grindelwald guide

Christian Almer 220px, Christian Almer Christian Almer (29 March 1826 – 17 May 1898) was a Swiss mountain guide and the first ascentionist of many prominent mountains in the western Alps during the golden and silver ages of alpinism. Almer was born and died i ...

. The next year he came back to attempt a first ascent of the notorious

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 extends a ...

. Christian Almer was Ulrich Kaufmann's brother in law, possibly explaining how Porges included the 17-year old Kaufmann as one of his guides, along with Almer and Christian Kaufmann Sr. They took off on August 13, but conditions were poor. The attempt on Eiger faltered the next day, and the party turned its attention to the neighboring Mönch. They had another bivouac an hour below the Mönchjoch (pass) and finally summited Mönch at 3 pm on August 15, after Kaufmann and his fellow guides had cut 300 steps in ice. The next year, Porges performed the second ascent of Eiger with different guides. In 1882, Kaufmann undertook the first attempted ascent of

Aoraki / Mount Cook Aoraki / Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Its height, as of 2014, is listed as . It sits in the Southern Alps, the mountain range that runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination, it is also a favourite ...

with William Spotswood Green (an

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priest,

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and member of the

Alpine Club The first alpine club, the Alpine Club, based in the United Kingdom, was founded in London in 1857 as a gentlemen's club. It was once described as: :"a club of English gentlemen devoted to mountaineering, first of all in the Alps, members of which ...

), and Swiss alpinist and hotelier Emil Boss. On 2 March 1882, they failed just short of the summit because of a storm. The first complete ascent of Aoraki would not take place until nearly 13 years later. In 1883, he and Emil Boss took part in the first climbing expedition in the Himalayas, led by William Woodman Graham. Among others, they claimed a near ascent of

Dunagiri Dunagiri is a historic area in Almora district in the state of Uttarakhand in India. Dunagiri is known as the birthplace of modern-day Kriya Yoga due to the fact that Lahiri Mahasaya was initiated into Kriya Yoga by Mahavatar Babaji at this s ...

(reaching about 6,900 m) and an ascent of

Changabang Changabang is a mountain in the Garhwal Division, Garhwal Himalaya of Uttarakhand, India. It is part of a group of peaks that form the northeast wall of the Nanda Devi Sanctuary. It is a particularly steep and rocky peak, and all routes on it ar ...

(6,864 m, 22,520 ft) in July in the

Garhwal Garhwal may refer to the following topics associated with Uttarakhand, India: Places *Garhwal Himalaya, a sub-range of the Himalayas *Garhwal Kingdom, a former kingdom * Garhwal District (British Garhwal), a former district of British India *Gar ...

Himalaya. These claims are widely disputed and were probably based on poor maps and a misunderstanding of their location. However, their ascent to 30 feet below the east summit of

Kabru Kabru is a mountain in the Himalayas on the border of eastern Nepal and India. It is part of a ridge that extends south from Kangchenjunga and is the southernmost peak in the world. The main features of this ridge are as follows (north to sou ...

south of

Kangchenjunga Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, Kanchanjanghā (), and Khangchendzonga, is the third highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at in a section of the Himalayas, the ''Kangchenjunga Himal'', which is bounded in the west by the T ...

in October of that year is now considered quite likely. Before this time, no one is known to have reached over , though it is possible that

Inca The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...

s reached the summit of

Aconcagua Aconcagua () is a mountain in the Principal Cordillera of the Andes mountain range, in Mendoza Province, Argentina. It is the List of highest mountains on Earth, highest mountain in the Americas, the highest outside Asia, and the highest in the ...

(6,962 m, 22,841 ft) in

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

times. Kaufmann, Boss and Graham therefore likely broke the world altitude record in mountaineering by 350 m or 550 m and held this record for 26 years, until the Duke of the Abruzzi's expedition to 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 the ...

in 1909 reached an altitude of ca. .

Other first ascents

* 1861 – First ascent of the

Schreckhorn The Schreckhorn (4,078 m) is a mountain in the Bernese Alps. It is the highest peak located entirely in the canton of Berne. The Schreckhorn is the northernmost Alpine four-thousander and the northernmost summit rising above 4,000 metres in Eu ...

with Peter Michel,

Leslie Stephen Sir Leslie Stephen (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, and mountaineer, and the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Life Sir Leslie Stephen came from a distinguished intellectua ...

and Christian Michel, by the south face, on 16 August * 1862 – First ascent of the Grosses Fiescherhorn with

Adolphus Warburton Moore Adolphus Warburton Moore (1841–1887) (known generally as A. W. Moore) was a British civil servant and mountaineer. Life The son of Major John Arthur Moore and Sophia Stewart Yates, Moore was an India Office official from 1858 to 1887, holding ...

, H. B. George and

, on 23 July

References

Sources

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kaufmann, Ulrich 1840 births 1917 deaths Alpine guides People from Grindelwald Swiss mountain climbers