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Lieutenant Alexis Pache
Born: 1874. Died: 1 September 1905 while attempting to climb Kanchenjunga with Aleister Crowley.
Alexis Pache was from Morges, Switzerland. Crowley found him to be an unaffected and unassuming gentleman. Aged thirty-one, he was the only son among the four children of Charles Louis Frederick Pache and Henriette Emma (née Cart); his sisters were Helene Marie Suzanne, Marguerite, and Marie. Pache was a Swiss army officer, having become a dragoon lieutenant in 1894. Between 1899 and 1901, he spent twenty months in the Boer War at Natal, fighting the British on behalf of the Boer government. He returned home to some celebrity: A three-part interview concerning his observations on the war and the respect he found for his indefatigable and chivalrous opponents ran in the Gazette de Lausanne, and was picked up from the London Times to the New Zealand Star. Although lacking in climbing experience, he was energetic and adventure-loving, joining the expedition to Kanchenjunga mainly for the opportunity to hunt in the Himalayas. Indeed, Dr. Jules Jacot Guillarmod noted how excited he got seeing monkeys and other animals from the train to Darjeeling. Pache also brought along several glass specimen vials to collect indigenous ants for Professor Auguste-Henri Forel (1848–1931), a distinguished Swiss psychiatrist and neuroanatamist who retired to devote himself to myrmecology.
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Alexis Pache's grave on Kanchenjunga.
Raising the corpses of Lt. Alexis Pache and the three Sherpas killed in the fall. [298]
Raising the corpses of Lt. Alexis Pache and the three Sherpas killed in the fall. [298]
The corpse of Lt. Alexis Pache. [298]
engraving a tombstone for the mausoleum for Lt. Alexis Pache. [298]
The Monument at the Gravesite |
