Who was the mountaineer who in 1970, together with Don Whillans, was the first person to scale the south face of Annapurna?
Kelvin Kent (mountaineer) Kelvin Kent (mountaineer) Kelvin Kent is a British adventurer, hiker, mountaineer, businessman and lecturer. He served in the British army for many years, seeing combat in Borneo and working with the Gurkhas of Nepal, before moving to the United States in 1976. Previously he had been a member of two mountaineering expeditions organized by Chris Bonington, to the south face of Annapurna in 1970 and the south-west face of Mount Everest in 1972. The Annapurna expedition, on which Kent served as base camp commander, successfully put Dougal Haston and Don Whillans on the summit, but Kent's friend Ian Clough was
Don Whillans of the south face of Annapurna in Bonington's 1970 expedition. Whillans was attributed with safety and mountain awareness, as evidenced by his retreat from the Eiger North Face on several occasions because of bad weather or rockfall. He had few climbing accidents although there were several near misses, such as when a fixed rope on the Central Torres del Paine snapped and he managed to put his weight on the holds with split-second timing before retying the rope. Whillans was well regarded for his capacity to deliver a cracking one-liner off the cuff. One example which encapsulates his wry humour