Michael Fowler (born 1956) is a British rock climber, ice climber, mountaineer and climbing author. He is internationally noted for his alpine climbing, and was awarded the Piolet d'Or three times, with Paul Ramsden, in 2003, 2013, and 2016, for alpine-style first ascents of faces in the Himalayas. Fowler was one of the first British rock climbers to free an E6-graded traditional rock climbing route (Linden, 1976), and the first ice climber to free a consensus grade VI mixed climbing Scottish winter route (The Shield Direct, 1979).
In the British Isles, Fowler is also noted for unusual and esoteric climbing including crumbling sea cliffs and sea stacks, and using mixed climbing techniques on chalk cliffs. In 1989, Fowler was voted the "Mountaineers' Mountaineer" in a poll of his peers by The Observer. Fowler stayed as an amateur climber and maintained a full-time job in the HM Revenue and Customs for almost forty years. Many of Fowler's awards were earned climbing Himalayan peaks during his annual holiday leave from the Revenue.
Climbing career
In 1976, Fowler became one of the first climbers in Britain to make a first free ascent (FFA) of a traditional climbing route at the E6-grade of difficulty when he freed Linden on the "Eliminates Wall" at Curbar Edge. In 1979, Fowler also became the first British climber to ascend a mixed climbing route at a consensus Scottish winter grade VI of difficulty (i.e. formally registered in the guidebook) when he freed The Shield Direct with Victor Saunders on Ben Nevis; it later turned out to be grade VII/7 route.
Fowler was a pioneer of unusual and adventurous climbs, including rock climbing on crumbling and unsound British sea cliffs and sea stacks, and using mixed climbing techniques to create new routes on the chalk cliffs of England's southeast coast. The Stack Rock (2020) guidebook for climbing sea stacks in the British Isles, identifies the era of "Fowler's forrays" from 1986 to 1993, as being one of the most important in the development of sea stack climbing, including his "outrageous" 1991 ascent of The Needle on Hoy (XS 5c). Fowler even famously ice-climbed a frozen water icicle from a broken toilet at St Pancras.
It is for alpine climbing that Fowler came to international recognition and the application of the alpine style (i.e. small teams carrying all their own equipment with no support) to high-altitude Himalayan faces. In his autobiography, Fowler recounts that by 1981, he completed his "tick list" of the European alpine classic north faces including the Walker Spur (1979) and the north faces of the Eiger (1980) and the Matterhorn (1980), when he met Alan Rouse who recommended he leave Europe and visit Peru. Fowler took his advice and learned to squeeze more ambitious expeditions into his 30-day annual leave from the Revenue. By 1987, Fowler and Victor Saunders, won international acclaim for their groundbreaking alpine-style ascent of the "Golden Pillar" on Spantik in the Karakoram (Fowler called it the "Walker Spur" of the Himalaya), which is still considered a milestone in high-altitude mountaineering.
After the success of the "Golden Pillar", Fowler continued to focus on making important alpine-style ascents of high-altitude Himalayan new routes including the Northeast Buttress of Taweche (1995) and the Northwest Face of Arwa Tower (1999). In 2003, Fowler and climbing partner Paul Ramsden, won the Piolet d'Or for their 2002 alpine-style ascent of the Northwest face of Siguniang; they were the first British climbers to win mountaineering's most prestigious award. The duo would win a second Piolet d'Or for their 2012 alpine-style ascent of the dramatic Northeast Buttress (the "Prow") of . In 2016, they won a third Piolet d'Or for their alpine-style ascent of North Face of Gave Ding.
Other climbing
In 2010, Fowler was elected to serve as president of the Alpine Club, which was a 3-year term from 2011 to 2013, after beating Henry Day in the first-ever contested election in the organization's 153-year history. In 2014, Fowler was appointed as a Patron of the British Mountaineering Council.
Climbing author
Fowler has written three books on his climbs and life as a climber, Vertical Pleasure: The Secret Life of a Taxman (1995), On Thin Ice (2005), and No Easy Way (2018); all three were shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature (never winning outright). Fowler won the Jon Whyte Award for Mountain Literature at the 2005 Banff Mountain Book Festival for On Thin Ice, and a compilation of Fowler's writings about his climbs with Victor Saunders by Eric Vola, titled Les Tribulations de Mick et Vic, won the Grand Prix Award at the Passy Book Festival in France in 2015.
