WOMEN ALPINE CLIMBERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9164, 12 August 1908, Page 4

WOMEN ALPINE CLIMBERS.

The formation of the Lyceum Alpine Club for women in London lias drawn new attention to feats of mountaineering where rocks, avalanches, glaciers and crevices are no respectors of

sex. It is close on a hundred years since the first notable climb was made by a woman. In 1809 Marie Paradis, of Chamonix, rather unwillingly ascended Mont Blanc, dragged up at last to the top by guides inexorable and deaf to her prayer, "Throw me into a crevasse and go on by yourselves." In 1838 this dismal recori was eclipsed by Mademoiselle d'Angeville, who made the ascent in the true spirit of the mountaineer. But from the sixties onwar 1 , women's names become plentiful in Alpine adventure -Miss IBrevoort, Miss Stratton, Miss Mary Walker, the Misses Anne and Ellen Pigeon, Mrs Wainwright, all accomplishing brilliant mountaineering feats. That highest altitudes need not daunt the enthusiast has been demonstrated by Mrs Bullock Workman, who, in 1906, made the first ascent of a peak in the Himalayas of 23,300 feet.