Geoffrey Hastings (1860–1941) was a British mountaineer who made numerous first ascents of rock-faces and peaks in the Lake District, the Alps and Norway, and helped to lay the foundations for mountain-climbing as a sport. He, Albert Mummery and J. Norman Collie were authoritatively considered to be the finest climbing trio of their dayW. P. Haskett Smith, Alpine Journal, Vol. 53 (1941), p. 70. T. G. Longstaff called them "the strongest trio of English mountaineers that ever attacked a high mountain": "Mountain Sickness and its Probable Causes", The Canadian Alpine Journal, Vol. III (1911), p. 93. and were the first to attempt to reach the summit of an eight-thousander in the Himalaya.
The standards of mountaineering established by the end of the nineteenth century by Hastings, Albert Mummery, William Cecil Slingsby and J. Norman Collie (called "the famous four" by their contemporary R. L. G. Irving) have been assessed as "well ahead of those of other Britons climbing at the time and at the forefront of amateur climbing worldwide".
Birth and early life Hastings was born at 2 Toller Lane, Manningham, Bradford, in 1860, the eldest son of Charles Hastings and his wife Anne (née Armytage). His father was a commission agent dealing in locally produced cloth and later a worsted spinner on his own account.William White, Directory and Topography of the Borough of Bradford, 1861; Census of England and Wales, 1861, 1871 and 1881; Bradford Daily Telegraph, 12 October 1876 and 14 October 1891. The family prospered in the 1860s and 1870s and, after a spell at Rev. Edwin Bittleston's academy near Northallerton, Geoffrey was educated at Marlborough College. On leaving school in 1877 he joined his father's firm where he began by learning hand wool-combing, then considered necessary for a proper understanding of worsted manufacture.Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 10 March 1941. As a result of his father's financial difficulties he took over the business in 1884 but soon discontinued it, later working as an insurance broker and owning a window-cleaning company.Bradford Daily Telegraph, 14 February 1884 and 8 August 1894; Census of England and Wales, 1901; Bradford Observer, 8 January 1944.
As a young man he had an appetite for all forms of physical recreation, participating in competitive rugby football and tennis, rowing, canoeing, swimming, and fell-walking.Bradford Observer, 13 July 1939; Leeds Times, 9 June 1894; Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 10 March 1841. He stroked the four-oar gig boat that won the White Rose Challenge Cup in 1886Yorkshire Gazette, 17 July 1886. and in August of the previous year had been first in each of the sculls, pair-oars and four-oars events at the Bradford Amateur Rowing Club regatta.Bradford Daily Telegraph, 25 August 1885. His exertions with the oar contributed to development of "the muscles of Hercules" for which he was renowned in climbing circles.A. F. Mummery, My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus, Fisher Unwin, London, 1895, p. 162.
Cave exploration He began rock-climbing and potholing in the early 1880s. A week after his successes at the Bradford regatta in 1885, he persuaded his brother Cuthbert Hastings to join him and their friend William Ecroyd in exploring the cavern below the Gavel Pot shakehole at Leck Fell (part of what is now known as the Three Counties cave system). Having made the -deep descent of Gavel Pot, the three successfully negotiated the upstream waterfall beyond and made their way up the "long passage" leading towards Short Drop Cave, but after about its narrowness prevented further progress.C. Hastings, "Gavel Pot in 1885", Yorkshire Ramblers' Club Journal, Vol. 6, No. 19 (1930), pp. 60-62; S. A. Craven, "A History of Cave Exploration in the Northern Pennines, United Kingdom, from 1883 until 1895", Cave and Karst Science, Vol. 29, No. 1, British Cave Research Association, p. 29. Their venture has been described as "the first extensive cave exploration in Great Britain".Yorkshire Evening Post, 23 December 1943, quoting Ernest Roberts (first Chairman of the Cave Rescue Organisation and "an absolute authority on the mountains and potholes of the British Isles": Yorkshire Ramblers' Club Journal, Vol. 9, No. 30).
Lake District By 1885 Hastings was already exploring the Lake District with William Ecroyd's brother-in-law Cecil Slingsby. Slingsby was eleven years Hastings' senior and had been climbing extensively at home and abroad for more than a decade. Hastings readily absorbed the wisdom and technique Slingsby imparted during their climbs together and in March 1885 the pair attempted ascent of the unclimbed Deep Ghyll on Scafell: they were defeated by ice, but in March the following year they repeated the attempt with success.Owen Glynne Jones, Rock-Climbing in the Lake District, Longmans Green & Co., London, 1897; Wm. Cecil Slingsby, "A New Ascent of Scafell", Alpine Journal, Vol. 13 (1886), p. 93.
Hastings was introduced by Slingsby to a wide circle of mountain enthusiasts and began to climb with Walter Haskett Smith, Edward Hopkinson, Albert Mummery and John Wilson Robinson. In 1887, with Slingsby and Haskett Smith, he made the first ascent of Needle Ridge on Great Gable, and he led the first party to climb Shamrock Gully on the east side of Pillar Rock. In this latter success the party was assisted by deep snow, and in December 1890 the feat was repeated under Hastings without the aid of snow.W. P. Haskett Smith, Climbing in the British Isles - I. England, Longmans Green & Co., London, 1895, pp. 96 and 142.
In July 1888 he, Haskett Smith and Hopkinson made the first ascent of Great Gully on Doe Crag near ConistonJones, p. 212; Haskett Smith, Climbing, pp. 37-39. and, augmented by Slingsby, the same group were first to climb Scafell Pinnacle by Steep Gill.Haskett Smith, Climbing, p. 138. In June 1886 Haskett Smith had attracted considerable interest when he climbed Napes Needle, a free standing pinnacle on Great Gable, and in March 1889 Hastings became the second to do so.Haskett Smith, Climbing, pp. 94-96. In 1891, with Haskett Smith and Slingsby, he made the first ascent of Pillar Rock by the north face, regarded as "a remarkable feat for the period",Haskett Smith, Climbing, p. 125; J. Norman Collie, FRS, Climbing on the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges, David Douglas, Edinburgh, p. 247; C. A. Russell, "One Hundred Years Ago", Alpine Journal, Vol. 96 (1991/92), p. 221; West Cumberland Times, 8 August 1891. and in the winter of 1891/2 he was in the party that first climbed the Great Gully of the Wastwater Screes.Haskett Smith, Climbing, pp. 138-141; Norman Collie, PhD, "Climbing near Wastdale Head", Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, Vol. III, No. 13 (January 1894), pp. 6-8; Collie, Climbing on the Himalaya, pp. 254-256.
With him in this latter endeavour was Norman Collie and, together with Robinson, they made the first ascent of Scafell's Moss Ghyll on 27 December 1892 (all previous parties attempting the climb having declared it impossible).Haskett Smith, Climbing, pp. 88-89; Collie, Climbing on the Himalaya, pp. 256-259. Collie, who had learned to climb in the Cuillins on Skye, pointed to Hastings as one of the pioneers who established the Lake District as a mountaineering resort by demonstrating that rock climbing of every degree of difficulty could be experienced among the hills surrounding the head of Wastdale.Collie, Climbing on the Himalaya, p. 247.
In March 1893 Hastings and Slingsby were elected Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society.The Mail (London), 15 March 1893.
The Alps In August 1892 Hastings had visited Chamonix and, with Collie, Mummery and C. H. Pasteur, made the first traverse of the Aiguille du Grépon by the north ridge, descending by the south.Mummery, My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus, pp. 140-150; C. A. Russell, "One Hundred Years Ago", Alpine Journal, Vol. 97 (1992/93), p. 240. This was probably his first Alpine excursion and he returned in the following year when, with Collie, Mummery and Slingsby, he made the first ascent of the Dent du Requin (regarded as a significant event in the history of Alpine climbing)Henri Isselin, Les Aiguilles de Chamonix, B. Arthaud, Paris, 1961, p. 90 and the first traverse of the Aiguille du Plan, reaching the summit by the unclimbed Col des Deux Aigles (which has since rarely been ascended).
He again returned to Chamonix in the summer of 1894 and, with Mummery and Collie, crossed the Mont Blanc range from the Argentière Glacier by the steep approach to the Col des Courtes, the first time this route had been taken. Four days later they completed the first guideless ascent of the Brenva Wall route and, shortly afterwards, the second ascent of the Aiguille Verte's Moine ridge, which they had believed to be unclimbed.G. Hastings, "Over Mont Blanc by the Brenva Route, Without Guides", Alpine Journal, Vol. 17 (1894/5), pp. 537-551; C. A. Russell, "One Hundred Years Ago", Alpine Journal, Vol. 99 (1994), pp. 231-232.
Theirs was the sixth ascent of the Brenva Wall route but its accomplishment without guides established a precedent. J. P. Farrar, who in the previous year had made the fifth ascent, considered it "the greatest of this famous party's ice-climbs in the Alps. No finer exhibition of determination and skill has ever been given by any amateur party".J. P. Farrar, "The Brenva Face of Mont Blanc", Alpine Journal, Vol. 26, p. 174. The party's success "opened the door wider to guideless climbing" at a time when that practice was not encouraged, and in some measure resisted, by the Alpine Club.R. L. G. Irving, "Unclouded Days 1901-1914", Alpine Journal, Vol. 62 (1957), p. 66.
Nanga Parbat In 1894 Hastings and Mummery agreed that, if they could obtain Indian government permission to visit the relevant part of Kashmir, they would attempt to climb Nanga Parbat (8,126 metres) in the following year. Permission obtained, Collie arranged to join them and "the three musketeers" (as they had become knownPhilip Parker (ed.), Himalaya: The Exploration and Conquest of the Greatest Mountains on Earth, Anova Books, 2012, p. 57.) sailed for Bombay in June 1895. A month later they established base camp in the Rupal Valley but, Mummery concluding there was little prospect of success on the south face of Nanga Parbat, they elected to relocate to the valley of the Diamir Glacier in order to attempt the north-west face.
In the course of this relocation the party twice crossed the Mazeno ridge by indirect routes and at one stage Hastings and Mummery climbed to a height of about 6,400 metres. Having been joined by two hillmen from the 5th Gurkha Rifles, the party re-established base camp in Diamir and from there, in mid-August, Mummery and one of the Gurkhas ascended Nanga Parbat's north-west face to more than 6,000 metres before the Gurkha's sickness forced them to return, leaving rucksacks behind them. The party then decided to move base to the Rakhiot valley, to allow examination of the mountain's north face. Mummery elected that he and the Gurkhas would recover the abandoned rucksacks and then cross to Rakhiot over a col at 6,200 metres. Hastings was suffering from a damaged heel, and the plan was that, along with Collie and the party's porters, he would transfer the camping equipment by a lower route. On 24 August Mummery and the Gurkhas set out for the col, leaving behind a stock of provisions in case they had to turn back in favour of the route followed by the others. They were never seen again.