The Maps of Bradford Washburn

This exhibit is about the maps produced by Bradford Washburn. By themselves they are a remarkable career.

A map is a way to organize thought and communicate with others. It is comparable to writing; you can write directions and I can follow them to a place. We may never meet, but we can still share a place, and a way of getting there.

Writing can be prosaic or poetic. In the same way a map can be pragmatic or transcendent -- but rarely both. A poetic map may inspire you, with a drawing of a dragon, or with the words This Area Unknown. A prosaic map can be artless and lifeless; a xerox copy of a frozen fish represents a fish…

Bradford Washburn’s maps are the rare combination; both pragmatic and beautiful. Useful tools that help you travel, and beautiful in a way that brings a piece of paper alive. You can climb a mountain with them, or contemplate them for hours while stuck in a tent by a storm. These maps are like looking up into a cloud; there is everything in them.

Reaching an altitude of 20,310 feet, Denali is the highest mountain in North America. Barbara & Bradford Washburn climbed Denali in 1947. Barbara was the first woman to reach the North Peak. In 1951 Bradford Washburn was part of a team that first climbed Denali via the West Buttress. This route is now the most popular and safest route to the summit.

Mount McKinley was officially renamed Denali in 2015.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy was the first person to reach the summit of Mount Kennedy. The climb was a memorial to his brother John F. Kennedy. The leader of the climb was Jim Whittaker, the first American to reach the top of Mount Everest. Bradford Washburn organized the climb and collected information for this map.

Follow the link below to the Life magazine review of the expedition.

The Bradford's spent several years surveying the Grand Canyon. This beautiful map came with the July 1978 National Geographic Magazine. It is easy to find a copy on ebay. I found this and the Everest map in the free pile at my library. I carried the map with me while hiking to Plateau Point where I took the photo above. Look closely in the lower left shadows, and you can see the Bright Angel Trail continuing to the Colorado river.

This is the first Washburn map I found, and the first I fell in love with. It came as a supplement to the November 1988 National Geographic magazine. I looked at it constantly while reading Everest: The West Ridge. The 1963 American expedition to Everest was a spectacular achievement; an epic of Himalayan climbing. Jim Whittacker was the first American on the summit via the South Col route. Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld climbed the West Ridge, traversed the summit, and descended the South Col. The expedition placed six people on top of the mountain.

Follow the link below to the Life Magazine review of the expedition.

This is a list of maps in the Library of Congress collection associated with Bradford Washburn. If the Library has multiple versions of a map, I only list the oldest on record. The format is: The Title of the Map, Publisher, year of copyright.

Mount McKinley, Alaska, Boston Museum of Science, 1960.

A chart of Squam Lake, New Hampshire, Boston Museum of Science, 1968.

The Massif of Mount Hubbard, Mount Alverstone, and Mount Kennedy, National Geographic Society, 1968.

The Squam Range, New Hampshire, Boston Museum of Science, 1973.

Heart of the Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, National Geographic Society, 1978.

Wonder Lake to McGonagall Pass and Muldrow Glacier, Alaska, Boston Museum of Science, 1980.

Bright Angel Trail, Grand Canyon, Arizona : a new large-scale map of the world's most famous footpath, Boston Museum of Science, 1981.

Mount Everest = Sagarmāthā (Sagarmatha) = Chu-mo-lung-ma Feng (Qomolangma), National Geographic Society, 1988.

Mount Washington and the heart of the Presidential Range, New Hampshire, Appalachian Mountain Club, 1988.