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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Sep 17, 2009 - 02:42pm PT
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I didn't see Betsy White listed. She's had a long and interesting history in the mountains. Her husband Gene died last year. Both of them quiet, wonderful and interesting people.
Perhaps someone who knows Betsy better can remind us (and me) of some of her climbing.
Fred Glover
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 17, 2009 - 03:30pm PT
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I'm happy to see this post circulating again.
As I said in her very own thread, the recent article by Tami in the Alpinist is not to be missed. Be forwarned: It's a two hanky read.
Thanks for the appreciation, Kate and Jaybro. I missed it before, but I'm smiling today.
Mucci, I haven't been climbing that long, and never turned out to be much of a wall climber anyway. Would be cool to be "that" Melissa. I'm not sure who she is.
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hooblie
climber
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Sep 17, 2009 - 07:03pm PT
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i've got to say, i'm coming to recognize that i'm a guy who just bumbled through, semi oblivious. lucky for me i got to the valley early enough to climb with bev johnson, though her story didn't unfold for me prior to the event, rather after the fact. i knew she had climbed with some of the greats, but in such a small world that made sense. what did get my attention was that she was gung ho enough to go climbing with a cast on her arm. we did some low angle thing below the lower brothers area that diagonals pretty good, and it made sense that mostly footwork was required so ... good to go.
shary mcvoy was a darn stout off width wrestler who impressed me with, maybe taught me about, taping procedures. did generator crack and others with lucy parker and felt like i was playing both sides of the fence when i loaned ron an ice ax after she burned his tent down. i kept running into pat timpson and julie brugger till it started to get silly, no matter which state. she made it crystal clear that girls can crank.
but i would have to say the lady climber that made burned an image for the ages was K.B., kathryn besio. we were both pretty darn limby and when i watched her move up on the thin stuff i had something of an epiphany. it came to me that i got up stuff for the same reason that she got up stuff and it wasn't by way of overwhelming force. i haven't had that feeling watching anyone else and i've always felt like we were in cahoots from opposite sides of the gender gap.
the great thing about what the women have shown us is that tenacity, finesse, and will pretty much trump a bunch of reckless puffery
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Sep 17, 2009 - 07:52pm PT
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Melissa-
I think her name is Melissa Swan?
anybody know her
I think she did the 1st female ascent of Eagles way in the early 90's with C Clance.
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The Chef
climber
Topsfield Ma
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Sep 18, 2009 - 10:18am PT
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I'm a new climber (this is my 3rd year) and I'm not very social, so I don't know many people in the community. I was however introduced to climbing by a female co-worker. Man could she climb.
Anyway, I enjoy history, so the second book I picked up was a history of climbing in the Northeastern US. I don't know, really, any history aside from what I've read. This very cool book (which I would recommend to any East or West coaster) "Yankee Rock & Ice" was written by Laura & Guy Waterman.
A few names I found, which I don't think have been mentioned.
1920s
Margaret Helburn
Elizabeth Knowlton
Florence Peabody
Marjorie Hurd
Jessie Whitehead
1930s
Betty Woolsey
Thelma Bonney
Red McDonald
Marguerite Schnellbacher
Hellen Fair
Maria Leiper
1940s
Bonnie Prudden
1950s
Krist Raubenheimer
Ann Church
Dorothy Hirschland
Ruth Tallan
Trudy Healy
Chicks climb hard, always have.
Joe
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Double D
climber
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Sep 18, 2009 - 12:29pm PT
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hooblie wrote,"but i would have to say the lady climber that made burned an image for the ages was K.B., kathryn besio..."
werd. KB was an amazing climber and really cool person to boot.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Idaho, also. Sorta, kinda mostly, Yeah.
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Sep 19, 2009 - 07:55pm PT
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Mucci, I know Melissa Swann.
She was around the Valley, mid '90's.
Did a fair amount of Wall Climbing.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2009 - 07:57pm PT
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Those two women are hugely inspirational to me and probably most of us, but the reason that I started the thread was to learn about the non-famous women or the non-famous stories about the famous ones. As I said before, there are piles of these tales for the fellas, and I'd like to see the less well known stories of female climbing adventure and tangentially associated debauchery be told more completely.
Lists of names are better than no info, but seeing someone's pics or hearing about post-climb fun from BITD fills a different kind of gap for me anyway.
To quote my own self upthread..."Like, Russ' pictures of climbing at the height of 80's fashion creates this excellent sense of nostalgia for me for a time when I wasn't even around. It's a story that's told one way or another here almost every day, and part of the reason why I like this site the best. It's just that women are almost never part of that story."
Thanks all for sharing
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Sep 19, 2009 - 09:35pm PT
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Here is a piece on Bonnie Prudden from Climbing 1988. I posted this on the Gunks thread initially.
Classic 75 North American Climber ad shot of Bonnie's Roof in the Gunks which she put up with Hans Kraus in 1952.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Chela Varrentzoff started climbing in high school in San Francisco where she first got interested in mountain climbing through books (stories of the early attempts by the British on Mt. Everest, etc.)
Her first climbing was done at Taquitz with a family friend who invited her on a Thanksgiving trip there with the Berkeley Hiking Club. The year was 1959 and Chela was only 16. Eventually she met Sharon Bachman and a friend who in turn invited Chela to go climbing with a college friend of theirs at Cragmont Rock in Berkeley. They were often mentored by older Sierra Club climbing mentors, like Steve Roper's father and Carl Weissner. Their new college friend meanwhile, turned out to be Frank Sacherer who practiced with the girls until he felt confident enough to climb in Yosemite.
When Chela decided to become a "certified leader" in the Sierra Club Rock Climbing Section, she had to complete a check list of skills ad finally a number of climbs from their list with a "Sierra Club Qualified Leader". Chuck Pratt and Bill Amborn took her climbing on several routes in Yosemite Valley including Higher Cathedral Spire, and had her do all the work of hauling ropes, setting up rappels, and belaying the leaders, as the paperwork required. Chuck then completed all the paperwork necessary and she mailed it in. Even though he was not technically qualified to evaluate her, since he was not a Sierra Club member, Chuck's climbing reputation was such already, that she was happily accepted as a certified rock climbing leader anyway.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=861139&msg=1029332#msg1029332
Chela occasionally led her own climbs since "following and getting out big bong-bong pitons from lieback cracks was almost worse than leading". She also had an epic on the infamous Royal Arches descent. She got marooned with her climbing partner somewhere near Washington's column when they turned to go down from the Rim too soon and had to spend the night on the wall. Chela remembers she had to do some creative, near horizontal, rappels wearing both their backpacks while carrying "twisty goldline prussik slings" in case she couldn't reach the next tiny tree way off to the side. As Chela puts it, "That experience as a 16-year old taught me a lot about just expecting to "be taken care of" "because I was just a girl".
I first met Chela in Yosemite through Frank when she was in college at Berkeley and climbing at a high standard with her soon to be husband, Paul Kunasz. Later they moved to Boulder where she is currently head of FOTSI (Friends of Tibetan Settlements in India).
http://www.kunasz.com/TSI/Newslet/news2009.pdf
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Fogarty
climber
BITD
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Miri Gingri
35 Years of kick ass climbing and still going strong.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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the OP was in Jan 2005, it's nearly 5 years later, certainly close to a climbers "peak" activity longevity...
There must have been women who have interesting, important stories to tell just recently!
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Climbing dropout
climber
X-Whistlerite
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I nominate Tami Knight to this thread. How many dozen FA's in Squamish have your name on them Tami ?
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Here's some Chicks rocking history right now as we rub the sleep out of our eyes, and jones the first cup 'o' Java....
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Climbing dropout
climber
British Columbia
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Tami do you remember sandbagging me with your boyfriend as the second on the FA of Slow Dyke near Arrowroute ? I removed the only piece of pro, just before the crux, and was suddenly looking at a ground fall even though i was seconding .... no wonder you passed on it.
Jaybro nice work, this thread needs a ton more photos !!!
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 1, 2009 - 09:54pm PT
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5 years? Time flies by too fast. Thanks for the bump and the sweet additions (esp. for adding pics of some ladies near and dear.)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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I've often wondered about all of those girls (who worked for Curry) who used to put up with us. I fell in "love" with like fifty of them over the decade of summers I hung in Yoz., and they (mostly) were always so gracious and I was always so loud and obnoxious. A couple of those girls still bother my sleep.
Where have they gone? The experiencs blend into the river of time but a touch, a sigh, a moment of kindness still lingers. One time, hunkered in a dorm room, one of those girls put her hand flat on my chest and quietly said, "You're not who you seem to be." She knew. Maybe they all did.
There was more than climbing . . .
JL
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Pretty sure I've posted this picture somewhere on ST before, but it really belongs in this thread. This chick made a bit of climbing history, but that was before she got thrown in jail for child endangerment. She's out now, and last I heard she'd taken up circus life. Too bad about that -- she had a real future as a climber
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richross
Trad climber
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Gunks climber Barbara Devine in Colorado 1977.
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