By Ingrid Masterson
Sylvia Yates was an early IMC member. whom I first got to know in the late 1950s after joining the IMC; she was a quiet person, and competent on the mountains. Unfortunately, our time together in the IMC was cut short when she left for London in the early 1960s where she worked for some years before moving to live in Switzerland. She remained a long-standing friend of our family and also of our children and later our grandchildren.
She joined the English Pinnacle climbing club, which catered for women who back then were excluded from membership of the well-known men-only Climbing Club. She also climbed in the Alps with the Ladies Alpine Club and did many worthwhile ascents. Unfortunately, it has been impossible to find any records of her exploits in the Alps, but from my memory I do know she climbed a route on the Dent du Requin in the early years, and also a challenging route other than the normal route, on Mont Blanc.
Apart from some family visits, we had a few mountaineering holidays together; at Sylvia’s invitation we both went on a meet of the International Women’s Randonnëe de Haute Montagne in 1973, where we did some nice climbing ascents of rock peaks, meeting some Russian women climbers who were met, as they returned down to the valley by their Russian chaperone, who ensured they would not go astray!
Sylvia also joined Noel, my husband and myself together with Brendan Proctor of the IMC for a traverse of the Julian Alps in Slovenia in 1974, which involved staying in various interesting huts, and entailed a first experience of the kind of terrain which later became locations for the now ubiquitous Via Ferrata, and culminated in an ascent of Triglav, the highest summit.
After Sylvia no longer engaged in serious climbing, she enjoyed being in the mountains, where she joined a group of us IMC members in La Bèrarde in the Daupiné Alps in the late 70s/early 80s where she walked, staying with us in our camp site.
We met more frequently after her return to Dublin, in the 1980s, during which time we enjoyed a trip to the Lake District completing a circuit of Wetherlam among other hill-treks, this was our last mountain experience together; though she would join us on the former regular veterans’ Christmas/New Year walk in Glendalough, until her health deteriorated some years ago.
Her passing is mourned by her extended family of cousins in Wicklow., as well as members of our family who got to know her well over the years.
Syvia Yates: born 1938, died 27th March 2025.
Ingrid Masterson