This section could never appear except for the great help given by many friends. Although this list is far from complete, we wish to thank particularly Dr. Adolf Diemberger, Dr. G.O. Dyhrenfurth, Sohli S. Mehta, Kamal K. Guha, Michael Cheney, Colonel James O.M. Roberts, Ichiro Yoshizawa, César and Benjamín Morales Arnao, Alan Blackshaw, Mario Fantin and many others.

Mount McKinley. Aside from ascents mentioned elsewhere in this Journal, Mount McKinley was ascended by climbers on three different routes. None reached the North Peak. On April 28 Jerrold R. Smith, John Luz, Stephen R. Wennstrom and Steve Schaefers climbed to the summit, having ascended the western rim of the South Face. The first two were killed on the descent. On July 1 Daniel L. Osborne, Stephen F. O’Brien, Edward O. Minot, Richard Jablonowski and Mike Salee reached the summit via Karstens Ridge. The following groups all climbed the mountain via the West Buttress: May 24, Richard Sylvester; May 26, Lito Tejada-Flores, Joey Cabell, Juris Krisjansons; May 26, James R. Mitchell, Larry T. Clark, Kenneth Varcoe, N. Michael Hansen; June 5, Ray Genet, Richard L. Doege, Eberhard Hansch, Craig L. Henderson; June 26, Gary Colliver, Nelson Max, Kenneth E. Hawker, Arnold McMillan, Randy Renner; July 1, Kazuo Hoshikawa (also July 5), Masao Date, Hyogo Takada, Mitch Michaud; July 5, Tsuyoshi Ueki, Etsuo Akutsu, Takashi Kawahara; July 6, Michael S. Bialos, James A. Prichard, Stuart Ferguson, Jan Anthony, Steve T. Sickles, Steven M. Hodge; July 13, Ray Genet, Jeb Schenck, Janis M. Niedra, Walter Jungen, Larry Fialkow, Mia Engi, Charles Rice, Reinhold Ullrich, John W. Stark, Hansueli Brunner, Arlette Brunner, Hannes Schierle, Jon Reed, Pat Pyne; July 20, Horton P. Johnson, Ronald M. Smith, George S. McHenry, Theodore E. Calleton, Pritchard H. White; July 31, Franz M.G. Konrad, Marek Glogocwski; August 26, Naomi Uemura (solo); August 31, Ray Genet, Barbara Britsh, James Steele, Raymond Nesbett, William Weiland.

Mount McKinley, the First All-Female Ascent. Twelve guides accompanied her … Porters carried entire calves, 24 chickens, 20 bottles and a keg of wine, ropes and ladders… Then Henriette d’Angeville saw her dream of decades come true as she reached the summit and was raised on the shoulders of her guides… The year was 1838… The peak Mont Blanc… It had taken Henriette years to organize this endeavor, against the wishes of her close associates… One would assume, that now, more than a hundred years later, women’s participation in expeditions would be easier, but this is not so. Often women are actively barred from climbs and expeditions. Utterances like: “if … thinks she is going too, she is suffering from illusions of grandeur”, or: ‘'this peak is not for your wife”, are only too real. Reasons why women should not participate are given by the dozens: the easy “masculine” camaraderie is disturbed when women are along, the non-climbing wives are jealous, body waste elimination situations are embarrassing, women cannot carry a thing, etc., etc. The quotation “this peak is not for your wife” of course can be easily explained, since the significance of a fine climb is automatically reduced if a woman is “in” on it.

Fortunately there are now many modern men, who expect their wives and girl friends to share their work and leisure experiences to the fullest with them, who do not agree with the reasons for barring women from adventures, who seek to analyze the true reasons for this forbidding attitude. My husband, a few weeks before his death, wrote: “.… don’t want a woman sharing what they consider a man’s adventure, such climbers are the ones who truly suffer illusions of grandeur”. A few weeks later this prophecy became a tragic reality. Continued unjustified discrimination against women in some endeavors of society led to the formation of “Women’s Liberation” groups, which have gone to the extreme of demanding total equality – something obviously impossible, since woman is so different from man. These groups, provocative and almost militant at times, have done little to place the problem in its true perspective.

Our first all-female international McKinley expedition, then, was by many earmarked as a “Women’s Liberation” project. “Liberation” was not what we six had in mind at all when we organized the trip. We were not out to prove that we could do the same as men. We had no plans whatsoever to carry the same loads up the mountain as men are able to do. No, we envisioned an opportunity to an experience, to climb a mountain. Being intelligent, curious human beings, we wanted to utilize that opportunity, and we did. I probably was the only one who had some demonstration motives because of a recent tragedy. I considered it a possible added benefit, if, through our expedition, the doors towards participation in mountaineering endeavors could be cracked ajar for deserving women in the future.

Our McKinley trip was a routine West Buttress ascent. More technical routes I did not seriously scrutinize, since I felt, and all expedition members agreed, that the West Buttress route was enough challenge for us and would offer the best chance for success. We left Talkeetna June 23 and were flown up to the southeast fork of the Kahiltna Glacier, from where we started to move equipment and food up the Kahiltna Glacier in several relays. On the 4th of July we had advanced to 17,000 feet via the West Buttress and had enough stores with us to be in a position to try for the summit. On July 6 we struck out from our inhospitable snow cave and all — Faye Kerr, Australia; Margaret Clark, New Zealand; Margaret Young, Palo Alto; Arlene Blum, Berkeley; Dana Isherwood, Belmont; and I - reached the summit late in the afternoon. For me this summit day resulted, on the descent, in far more than anticipated sickness, frustrating me and demanding extreme efforts from my expedition members and help from a nearby party. Fortunately I recovered quickly. Our descent was greatly slowed by a typical Alaskan storm, which kept us immobilized at Kahiltna Pass for several days. Not until July 15 could we be flown out from our Base Camp.

Grace Hoeman, M.D.

Note: All dates in this section refer to 1970 unless stated otherwise.