The last living climber on the first team to scale Yosemite’s El Capitan has died from complications of COVID-19. George Whitmore, 89, is best known for his historic climb in 1958 with his partners, Wayne Merry and Warren Harding. His pioneering techniques helped the group get safely to the top.
“They enjoyed having done it. It was a great adventure to them but none of them ever really had a big head about it, so to speak,” says his widow, Nancy Whitmore, 76.
She says George would have wanted to be remembered more for his involvement in the Sierra Club’s Tehipite Chapter in Fresno. He joined in 1954, advocating for wilderness protection in the Sierra Nevada.
Most recently, George was the chapter’s chair of the Yosemite Committee, leading all planning and expansion issues involving Yosemite National Park, Nancy said.
“That was the thing that he was most proud of all his life, was the work that he was able to do to save local areas of the Sierra,” she says.
One of his most notable accomplishments involved Mineral King. Nancy says he generated letters of support to save the wilderness area that is now part of Sequoia National Park. In the 1960s, it nearly became a massive ski resort proposed by the Walt Disney Company.
As with other projects, “they used the same grassroots approach to get Mineral King added to the park and that was the way they saved Mineral King,” Nancy said.
Gary Lasky worked alongside George at the Sierra Club’s Tehipite Chapter. He says he admired George and looked to him as a role model.
“Sometimes it seems so overwhelming when you’re trying to do the right thing to protect the environment,” he said. “And you need examples of people who really have continued at it and made progress over time.”
Nancy says her husband spent his last days in hospice care after he was diagnosed with the virus in mid-December. George Whitmore died January 1st.
