Tom Patey (20 February 1932 — 25 May 1970) was a Scottish climber, mountaineer and writer. Although he was a leading Scottish climber of his day, particularly excelling on winter routes, he his probably best known for his humorous writings about climbing, many of which were published posthumously in the collection One Man's Mountains.He was born in Scotland and educated in Aberdeen at Ellon Academy and Robert Gordon's College. He first became interested in climbing while he was in the Scouts, but it was at the University of Aberdeen, where he trained as a doctor, that he first revealed his full talent as an exploratory climber. Much of his early exploratory routes were on Lochnagar and neighboring Cairngorms. A dedicated climber he often dropped all other commitments for the prospect of a good climb. Always liked to travel light up to the point of leaving gloves behind on some ice climbs and had a healthy disrespect for climbing ropes unless absolutely necessaryHe climbed extensively in Scotland, as well as achieving notable ascents in the Alps and the Himalayas including the first ascent of the Muztagh Tower (7273m) with John Hartog, Joe Brown and Ian McNaught Davis in 1956 and Rakaposhi (7788m) in 1958 with Mike Banks. In 1968, he and the mountaineer Ian Clough were the first to climb Am Buachaille, a sea stack off the coast of Sutherland. He and Chris Bonington pioneered the route up the Old Man of Hoy which was repeated with others on a live televised BBC outside broadcast on July 8-9 1967. At the time of his death he was working as a local GP in Ullapool, in the far north-west of Scotland. He was killed abseiling from another sea stack off Scotland's northern coast.The Muztagh Tower (also: Mustagh Tower; Muztagh: ice tower), is a mountain of the Karakoram range in the Himalaya in Northern Areas of Pakistan. It is often said to be one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb. The Muztagh Tower stands 7,273 metres high between the basins of the Baltoro and Sarpo Laggo glaciers, and also possesses a second summit, on the northeast ridge, that is 7,180 m high.Long considered unclimbable, it was first summited in 1956 by a British expedition, consisting of John Hartog, Joe Brown, Tom Patey and Ian McNaught Davis, that came from the west side. The group barely managed to beat a French party attempting to climb the mountain from the east, reaching the top on July 6, 1956, five days before the French. The lower summit was first climbed in 1984 by the northeast ridge.
