It is with heavy hearts that the MCK shares the news that Clive Ward passed away a few days ago. He had been in Kenya for the past four or five months working on the construction of a house and school facilities at Kasigau (a dramatic inselberg between the Taita Hills and Mombasa) for an American benefactor. Upon his return to the UK he suffered a heart attack and died shortly after in an Essex hospital.
Clive became a member of the club in the mid 1980s and brought with him a huge amount of experience of technical climbing gained on major mountains in the US, South America, the Himalayas, South Africa and East Africa, after starting climbing in the Lake District at 15. He subsequently worked with Iain Allan for Tropical Ice and Mountain Travel. He was a prolific climber and first ascentionist, putting up many routes with Iain Allan in particular in Lukenya, Frog and Hell’s Gate. He climbed Kilimanjaro over seventy times, and Mount Kenya over fifty.
Clive was inexhaustible and great company, continuing to climb into his eighties, and he had many a tale to tell. He was also active in the Cave Exploration Group of East Africa and an excellent photographer, producing beautiful books such as the Moutains of Southern African, Snowcaps on the Equator and Kenyan Caves.
The MCK is deepy saddened to hear of his passing, and is indebted to Clive for his contributions to the community in Kenya and to climbing and caving over the years.
A great life well lived.
With thanks to Graeme Watson and Iain Allan for the words on Clive’s life.
Please feel free to share stories or testimonies about Clive below. We will keep this page on the MCK website.
7 responses to “In memory of Clive Ward”
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Baldip and I knew Clive from way back in the 80’s. On one of my MCK NFD trips he turned up in a very old VW beetle which had no boot cover so the engine was fully exposed. At a sandy lugga crossing just before South Horr of course it got stuck donkey deep and we all had to push him out. A really great fellow and we shall miss him! R.I.P. my friend……
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I am honoured to have met Clive. He was a great man and may his soul rest in peace.
Sincere condolences to his family and friends.
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We all remember the mild-mannered, soft-spoken, and modest Clive Ward. Yet spend a bit more time with him (and a couple of beers), and you’d uncover a life of adventure, inquiry, and deep insight. F*** Indiana Jones—Clive mapped the caves of Kilimanjaro and, despite no formal higher education, was invited to speak before rooms full of PhDs in geology. Curious about the tribes of the NFD or South Sudan? Ask Clive—he’d spent time with them all.
I’d bet anything Clive had the highest success rate leading clients up Kili. His method? Walking the line of climbers, calmly reminding each one to breathe—again and again. From him, I learned that deep, constant breathing is the key to avoiding altitude sickness. He may never have written that book on the subject, but he was the one to do it.
One evening, Clive had us in tears of laughter describing how he’d psych himself up for clients, pacing his room muttering, “It’s showtime!” He warned against starting romances with clients, yet the story of when he ignored his own advice was a hilarious and heartfelt fish-out-of-water tale that showed his charm and self-deprecating humour.
I was proud to assist Clive in designing the clinic he built in Kasigau—a generous act from a man with modest means, showing his deep care for those in remote communities. It’s hard to imagine never again bumping into Clive part-way up Mt. Kenya, on a small plane over South Sudan, or over a beer at an MCK meeting. But I’ll always carry his best advice with me: keep breathing. -
In the mid90s Clive and I did a lot climbing together both in Kenya and North America. On the harder routes, Clive preferred to second rather than lead. I believe his reluctance to lead was due more to his belief that it meant more to me than it did to him. He was one of the most naturally gifted, fluid climbers I’ve ever shared a rope with. In America we climbed the North Face of Fairview Dome in Toulumne; the South Face of Charlotte Dome in Kings Canyon; the Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite Valley (all in California). Our finest achievement was a clandestine ascent of Shiprock, a 2,000 foot spire in New Mexico. We sneaked in and did the climb, which was difficult and sustained. I led the entire climb, and we submitted after 6 hours of climbing. We started abseiling down, but it wasn’t plain sailing, tricky traverses needed to be made. We were half-way down when I started to develop dizzy spells, perhaps from dehydration, but it was unpleasant. Clive stepped in, somehow moved me across the tricky parts, rigged up the abseils, and managed me safely off the peak. Clive could always be relied upon when he was needed; he made the climbing game easier in so many ways.
In 2001 he joined my wife and kids, and a few friends on a 21 day trek in a very remote part of Nepal, which had just been opened to foreign traveller’s. The beautiful photos he took on this trip still grace our walls at home.
It almost seems too simple to say, but if I had to sum up Clive it would be that he needed less from life than most people require, he was a good, decent man.
Hope to see you on the other side of the mountain, Clive.
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Some time in 1989, Clive Ward and I put up a new route at Lukenya, a modest enough effort which would today probably be soloed by a boulder climber with a deep mat. At the time, we realized that the crux, one move, could not be protected by nuts or Friends. After much deliberation, as we were both determined trad climbers, we put in a bolt, on the grounds that a climber might break an ankle if he or she came off at the crux.
We were traditionalists in other ways too. We both grew up to the music of the Rolling Stones, the Doors, the Who etc. But it seemed to have been replaced by the relentless, ubiquitous thumping of an electronic bass and was called disco. Hence we called the route “Death of Disco”.
Clive a good photographer too. He took the photographs for Iain Allen’s and Gordon Boy’s 1988 compendium of Africa’s Alps – Snowcaps on the Equator, which includes a fine shot of Clive in a dramatic diedre, leading a first ascent on Mt. Stanley in the Rwenzoris.
Late last year I met Clive again, quite by chance in a nearby cafe, on his way to Kasigau to the clinic he was building. We talked of his caving – he was still a very active caver and very knowledgable. But he remained, as Iain and Andy have pointed out above, humble, modest and quiet – but highly competent, a safe and accomplished climber.
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Clive Ward was one of the legendary stars of East Africa that formed part of the constellation part illuminating, inspiring or encouraging leaders mortals like myself to get out and there, be bold, explore, bigger it and blast it, just do it!
I will remember Clive for his amusing and amused air with a wild glint in his eye and a look on his face either thoughtful, mischievous or something that transcended both but which gave him that ‘someone special’ air.
I am sure he has encouraged, if not inspired and physically enabled literally thousands of people to do more and be more in one way or another.
As others who knew him better than me have said, he was a uniquely good as well as impressive and accomplished bloke.
His good works and inspirations will carry on, as befits a legend like him! -
I just read these fitting few final words from Clive in the caver magazine kindly shared by Nikunj here:
https://wilder-mag.com/featured-articles/kenyan-caving
when Clive was ‘trapped’ on a tricky cave crawl – which echoes his wise words shared by Andy above. Words which have also come inspired and empowered me on how to keep “calm and keep on” through many challenging times’
“This is psychological, this is common, relax, go limp. Breathe in slow, control.”
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