In 1970, a team of six women, led by Alaskan doctor and mountaineer Grace Hoeman, embarked on a groundbreaking expedition to summit Denali, marking the first all-female attempt on the towering Alaskan peak. This political and social climb was a first all-women’s climb of any major peak on the planet. It provided a significant precedent for women in the world of mountaineering. Along the way, we documented the growing power of women climbers. Their accomplishments are shattering ceilings in an industry that has historically been male-dominated.
As mountaineers, women have climbed great mountains and traversed harsh polar regions, frequently pushing the boundaries of their time and societal expectations. Irish alpinist Elizabeth Le Blond was one of many notable early female adventurers. She shunned the conventions of her time, climbing boldly in the Alps without a husband—then unthinkably, she refused to marry. Likewise, almost a century later in 1929, Miriam Underhill and Alice Damesme turned heads by ascending The Grépon, a peak long considered unclimbable. Their successful ascent altered the ballgame. Not long after, the mountain was declared “too easy” for men, a testimony to changing views on what women were capable of doing.
The impact of women on mountaineering has been both monumental and ground-breaking. In 1959, French alpinist Claude Kogan led an all-female team, with male guides and Sherpas, on Cho Oyu, another significant achievement in women's climbing history. Back home in 1912, American adventurer Fanny Bullock Workman was busy shattering female altitude records in the Himalayas. She famously used her success to advocate for women's equality, symbolized by her photograph on the Siachen Glacier holding a newspaper with the headline "Votes for Women."
Grace Hoeman’s climb of Denali with her crew was both a physical victory and a cultural achievement. Reflecting on her motivations, Hoeman remarked:
“Reporters expected me to come up with some deep psychological reason why I needed to be the first woman on the summit of Mount McKinley, why I felt I needed to excel like this. They were always disappointed when I said I simply wanted to be with my husband.” – Grace Hoeman
Barbara Washburn climbed with her husband, Bradford Washburn, and carved her place in Denali history. He became one of the world’s most celebrated cartographers and explorers. Bradford eventually became recognized for completing the first-ever complete map of Denali’s vast expanse in 1947. Their combined climb emphasized the character of cooperative mountaineering between genders.
These women were true trailblazers who opened doors for generations to come. One of those early innovators, Lydia Bradey, made history in 1988 by being the first woman to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen while just 27 years old. Bradey took personal sacrifices for her career, undergoing sterilization so she could focus on her love for mountaineering. Her accomplishments serve to highlight the physical challenges and social stigmas encountered by women in the sport of climbing.
Bradey's reflections highlight the evolving perceptions of women in mountaineering:
“When I started mountaineering, I would see men who were fathers pushing themselves and taking risks. And it seemed to me that their wives and girlfriends back home were in the dark about what was going on. So men got away with what they were doing and it was only when women who were mothers started climbing that the spotlight fell on the subject.” – Bradey
That notion that women were able to combine motherhood with mountaineering didn’t take hold until much later, deep into the 2000s. This change in attitudes is part of a larger movement acknowledging and respecting the many roles and strengths that women have in the world of adventure sports.
Alison Hargreaves, a female frontiers pioneer, tragically perished in 1995 on K2 during a vicious storm. Her unexpected death served as a sobering reminder to the climbing community just how dangerous high-altitude climbs can be. Hargreaves has become one of her generation’s most influential adventurers and accomplished mountaineers. She has climbed Everest without supplemental oxygen and soloed all six classic north faces of the Alps in a single season. Her legacy lives on, inspiring climbers around the globe.
The indefatigable spirit of trailblazing women such as Fanny Bullock Workman lives on, in large part thanks to the written history and photography they produced. Workman's advocacy for women's rights through her mountaineering accomplishments remains a powerful testament to the intersection between exploration and social progress.
Elizabeth Le Blond's insights into the challenges faced by early female mountaineers resonate with contemporary audiences:
“The main reason so few women climbed in that era “was that unless they had the companionship of a father, brother, or sister, it was looked at as most shocking for a ‘female’ to sleep in a hut or bivouac”.” – Elizabeth Le Blond