Ines Papert in Kyrgystan,
Ines Papert
Most people would find a 1200-metre wall of ice on a mountain peak intimidating. But for decorated ice climber Ines Papert, scaling the peak of Kyzyl Asker – a remote mountain on the border between China and Kyrgyzstan – was a dream. It took three attempts before she and fellow climber Luka Lindič summitted it in 2016 (pictured above), becoming the first known people to climb a precipitous route the pair dubbed “Lost in China”.
Papert is one of more than a dozen female mountaineers whose daring expeditions to the world’s greatest peaks are featured in Mountaineering Women: Climbing through history by Joanna Croston.
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Le Blond
The Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum, Chanute, Kansas
Another is mountaineer Elizabeth “Lizzie” Le Blond, photographed climbing a mountain in the Swiss Alps in 1889 in a full skirt (pictured above). Le Blond, who made 20 record-breaking ascents, also helped form the Ladies’ Alpine Club in 1907 to offer support to female mountaineers in this male-dominated sport.
Lydia Bradey on the first female ascent of Zenith, Halfdome, Yosemite National Park
Steve Monks
Croston’s book also features Lydia Bradey, who was the first woman to climb several routes in California’s Yosemite National Park in the 1980s. Shown above, she is pictured midway up a route on the iconic face of Half Dome. In 1988, she became the first woman to summit Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen. The Tibetan name for Everest is Qomolangma, which means “goddess mother of the world”.
Mountaineering Women: Climbing through history will be released in the UK on 7 August and internationally on 16 September.
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