Leigh N. Ortenburger Papers

http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt058031d5 No online items Guide to the Leigh N. Ortenburger Papers Irene Beardsley Department of Special Collections Green Library Stanford University Libraries Stanford, CA 94305-6004 Phone: (650) 725-1022 Email: [email protected] URL: http://library.stanford.edu/spc/ © 2008 The Board of Trustees of Stanford University. All rights reserved. Guide to the Leigh N. M1503 1 Ortenburger Papers Guide to the Leigh N. Ortenburger Papers Collection number: M1503 Department of Special Collections and University Archives Stanford University Libraries Stanford, California Processed by: Irene Beardsley Date Completed: 2009 Encoded by: Bill O'Hanlon © 2008 The Board of Trustees of Stanford University. All rights reserved. Descriptive Summary Title: Leigh N. Ortenburger papers Dates: 1929-1996 Collection number: M1503 Creator: Leigh N. Ortenburger Collection Size: 37 linear feet53 manuscript boxes, 6 4x6 boxes, 16 flat boxes, 2 map folders Repository: Stanford University. Libraries. Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives. Abstract: The papers of Leigh N. Ortenburger contain correspondence, personal papers, maps, manuscripts, and photographic negatives and prints, with emphasis on the Cordillera Blanca in Peru and the Teton Range in Wyoming. He was the early author and eventual co-author of the definitive climber?s guide to the Teton Range, had nearly finished a manuscript on the early exploration of the range, including the controversy on the first ascent of the Grand Teton, and in ten trips to the Cordillera Blanca had obtained extensive material for a photo essay on the range which was never finished. Physical location: Special Collections materials are stored offsite and must be paged in advance. For more information on paging collections, see the department's website: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/spc.html. Languages: Languages represented in the collection: English Access Collection is open for research; materials must be requested at least 36 hours in advance of intended use. Publication Rights All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California 94304-6064. Consent is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner, heir(s) or assigns. See: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/pubserv/permissions.html. Preferred Citation Leigh N. Ortenburger papers, M1503. Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. Acquisition Information Accession number: 2005-282 Carolyn and Teresa Ortenburger in October 2005 gave the bulk of this collection to Stanford University, Special Collections and University Archives. Processing Information Processed by Irene A. Beardsley in 2006-2009. Biography / Administrative History Leigh Natus Ortenburger was born in Norman, Oklahoma in 1929, the youngest of three brothers. He came by his passion for completeness and accuracy naturally; his father, Arthur I. Ortenburger, was a professor of biology at the University of Oklahoma, specializing in herpetology, and his mother, Roberta Deam, was the only living child of Charles C. Deam, a Guide to the Leigh N. M1503 2 Ortenburger Papers renowned, self-educated botanist who received honorary degrees and wrote a complete Flora of Indiana. He had two older brothers, Robert D. Ortenburger and Arthur I. Ortenburger, Jr. Leigh was class photographer for his yearbook at Norman High School, and several early trips to Colorado with the family of a friend, Jack Whistler, attracted him to mountaineering. Leigh began his university studies in 1947 with a year at the University of Oklahoma, majoring in mathematics and working at the university photo lab. During the summer of 1948 he first visited the Tetons, where he began climbing and photographing mountains under the tutelage of Dick Pownall and Glenn Exum of the Petzoldt-Exum School of American Mountaineering. He decided to spend his sophomore year at Deep Springs, an unusual two-year liberal arts college with a maximum of 26 male students, located on the high desert east of the Sierras near Westgard Pass. The students governed themselves and ran the ranch. On the July 4th weekend in 1949 he used his new mountaineering skills to lead two fellow students, Curt Karplus and Lee Talbot, up the East Face of Mt. Whitney. After several false starts they climbed the face and spent the night on a ledge near the summit. A ranger called up to them, and when he could not hear their answer, reported them missing to the college. Irate at their climb and mostly at their late return, the faculty demanded a disciplinary meeting of the student body governing committee, but aside from the president, Dave Werdegar, the other three members were the culprits themselves. After a full year at Deep Springs, Leigh returned to Norman and the University of Oklahoma, where he completed his undergraduate degree in mathematics and continued to work at the university photo lab. Every summer from 1950 through 1955 he returned to the Tetons, where he was included as photographer on guided climbs, climbing with guides Dick Pownall, Bob Merriam, and Glenn Exum. By the end of 1950 he was a guide himself, but he soon became more interested in photographing the range with his 2¼" x 3¼" camera and doing the research for a new guidebook. From then on, Leigh was a frequent sight in the back of the Jenny Lake Ranger Station, questioning the rangers and returning climbers and poring through the cards containing the climbing records for each year. He made many climbs during the summer of 1951, with partners including the Merriams, John and George Mowat and Nick Clinch from the Stanford Alpine Club, Richard Irvin from UC Berkeley, and the chemistry professor, Fred Ayres, from Reed College. Leigh's class at OU graduated in 1951, but by a technicality he received his degree in 1952. In the winter of 1951-52 he had already moved to Berkeley, enrolled as a graduate student in the Department of Mathematics, and become active in the Rock Climbing Section of the Sierra Club. An opportunity came to go on the California Peruvian Expedition, which was studying high altitude physiology in several laboratories in Peru, when a mountaineering team was added to obtain studies of the effects of altitude on the climbers themselves. Leigh shot many stunning images of the Cordillera Blanca with his new Linhof Technika III 4x5 camera, including aerials, thanks to transportation by the United States Air Force. In typical fashion he was able to fit in a visit the Tetons late that summer, after the trip to Peru. New climbing partners included the famous guide Willi Unsoeld, as well as Beatrice Vogel, the first of several climbing girlfriends from the Stanford Alpine Club. Leigh received a master's degree from Berkeley in 1953 and continued to take courses towards a PhD in the fundamentals of mathematics. He guided and climbed in the Tetons all that summer, particularly with Bill Buckingham, a young and talented resident of Wilson, Wyoming. The 1952 Peru trip had been run in a military fashion, and Leigh had acquired a permanent dislike for this type of expedition. The next Peru trip in 1954 was organized by eight friends who succeeded in making seven ascents amicably, although it should be noted that the West Peak of Huandoy was climbed on three different days by three lonely individuals. Again Leigh visited the Tetons both before and after the Peru trip, climbing extensively in the fall with Gary Hemming. Later that year it became clear that Leigh was not going to get a position with the one professor under whom he wanted to study. He dropped out of Berkeley to work full time on the Teton guidebook. This led to his being drafted during peacetime after the Korean War. He went to the Tetons in June of 1955 for one climb, completed basic training at Ford Ord during the summer, and then passed through the Tetons again on his way to his post at the Army Chemical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. With his fiancée, Irene Beardsley, another Stanford Alpine Club member, he made a new route on the Grand Teton by climbing Okie's Thorn (eponymous), rappelling into the notch separating the Thorn from the Grand, doing a short Tyrolean traverse across the gap by lassoing a horn, and then climbing a steep face with good holds to link up with the East Ridge route. In Maryland the army put him to work doing computer modeling of chemical warfare. This made use of statistics and operations research methods, which would help him in his eventual career. In June of 1956 Leigh and Irene were married, A Climber's Guide to the Teton Range was published by the Sierra Club, and Leigh managed to get time off from the army that summer to go as a guide on an expedition to Mt. Wood in the Yukon Territories led by Al Baxter. Getting out of the army a month early in 1957 for "seasonal employment," Leigh made his last trip with clients up the Grand that summer. In the fall he reported for his first and only job at GTE Sylvania in Mtn. View, CA, where he would work for the next 30 years. His work was highly classified, but it can be said now that it involved electronic countermeasures and he became an expert in predicting the propagation of radio waves in the earth?s atmosphere. Guide to the Leigh N. M1503 3 Ortenburger Papers He spent every summer of his adult life in the Tetons or the Cordillera Blanca of Peru.

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