Читать книгу Edge of the Map. The Mountain Life of Christine Boskoff онлайн

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Among the earliest to take this approach was mountaineer Arlene Blum, who in 1969 received this response to her request to join an allmale expedition in Afghanistan:

Dear Miss Blum:

Not too easy a letter to write as your prior work in Peru demonstrates your ability to go high, and a source I trust has furnished a glowing account of your pleasant nature in the mountains.

But one woman and nine men would seem to me to be unpleasant high on the open ice, not only in excretory situations, but in the easy masculine companionship which is so vital a part of the joy of an expedition.

Sorry as hell.

Aside from the perceived intrusion of females at base camp, the ability of women to undertake the same physical rigors as men was called into question, as Blum discovered. “When I asked why women wouldn’t be admitted to a commercial climb of Mount McKinley that year,” she recalled, “I was informed that women are a liability in the high mountains: They are not strong enough to carry their share of the loads and lack the emotional stability to withstand the psychological stresses of a high-altitude climb.”