Francis Sydney Smythe | |
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Born | 6 July 1900 |
Died | 27 June 1949 London | (aged 48)
Occupation(s) | botanist, explorer, mountaineer photographer, writer |
Francis Sydney Smythe, better known as Frank Smythe or F. S. Smythe (6 July 1900 – 27 June 1949), was an English mountaineer, author, photographer and botanist. He is best remembered for his mountaineering in the Alps as well as in the Himalayas, where he identified a region that he named the "Valley of Flowers", now a protected park. His ascents include two new routes on the Brenva Face of Mont Blanc, Kamet, and attempts on Kangchenjunga and Mount Everest in the 1930s.[1] It was said that he had a tendency for irascibility, something some of his mountaineering contemporaries said "decreased with altitude".[2]