Florence Crauford Grove (12 March 1838 – 17 August 1902) was an
Englishmountaineer and
author, sometimes known as F. Crauford Grove. He led the first expedition to ascend the higher summit of
Mount Elbrus and was at one time president of the
Alpine Club.
Mountaineer
Grove became an experienced alpinist in the late 1850s and joined the
Alpine Club of London soon after it was formed in 1857, later serving as its president from 1884 to 1886.[1] He was one of the best British climbers of his day and is remembered for opposing guideless climbing during the 1870s. An article on the founders of the Alpine Club in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him a "gentleman traveller of independent means".[2]
Because of his first name, Grove is sometimes mistakenly thought to have been a woman. His second name is Crauford.
First ascents
12 August 1863:
Dent d'Hérens (4,171 m) with Reginald S. Macdonald, Montagu Woodmass and William Edward Hall and guides
Melchior Anderegg and Peter Perren
16 August 1863:
Parrotspitze (4,432 m) with the same party (Reginald S. Macdonald, Montagu Woodmass, William Edward Hall, guides Melchior Anderegg and Peter Perren)
22 August 1864:
Zinalrothorn (4,221 m), with
Leslie Stephen and guides Jakob Anderegg and Melchior Anderegg
28 July 1865:
Aiguille de Bionnassay (4,052 m), with E. Buxton and R.Macdonald, and guides J.Cachet and M.Payne.[3]
The Frosty Caucasus: an account of a walk through part of the Range and of an ascent of Elbruz in the summer of 1874 (London, Longmans, Green & Co, 1875, 341 pp.)
Grove's book is illustrated with six plates by
Edward Whymper, from photographs by Horace Walker, and a folding map. Chapters cover the Upper Rion, the valley of the Upper Tcherek river, the Bezingi glacier and the
Kotchan Tau Group (both in
Kabardino-Balkaria,
Russia),
Tchegem and the Gorge of the Djilki-Su, Urusbieh, the first ascent of Mount Elbruz (in Kabardino-Balkaria and
Karachay–Cherkessia), and the Nakhar Pass (in
Georgia).
The Frosty Caucasus was republished in a facsimile edition by Adamant Media Corporation in February 2002 (
ISBN978-1402184468).