7 minute read
SHE CLIMBS HIGH!
Women’s Climbing Leadership in the Mazamas: The Pioneers
by Amy Brose, Rick Craycraft, and Jeff Thomas
From the outset of the Mazamas, women played a significant role in leading and creating opportunities for people to challenge themselves on the Pacific Northwest peaks. Here we highlight a handful of Mazama women who have broken trail for those who followed.
The Mazama ‘Mountaineuse’ Takes Charge
As an active Mazama skier and mountaineer, Anne Dillinger was setting records before she made her mark as the first woman to lead a climb for the Mazamas. In 1913, she was the first woman to summit Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mount St. Helens, and Mt. Rainier all in the same season. She organized Mazama ski outings and shared her expertise in local mountaineering seminars given to Portlanders. This extensive experience and enthusiasm led to the first opportunity for a Mazama woman to shine as a climb leader.
In July of 1915, Anne was tasked with officially leading a group of climbers up the Cooper Spur route on Mt. Hood. An avalanche made for a newsworthy ascent and showed Anne’s strengths as a leader. This release of snow on the route threatened Anne and Gertrude Wiley, a fellow climber in her group. Anne pushed Ms. Wiley out of the path of the slide and then acted quickly to drive their alpenstocks into the snow to protect them both as the avalanche overtook them. Fortunately, they were able to dig out, and Anne took Ms. Wiley down to safety. She then went back up to help those who were descending. After a young man crossed a patch of ice that had opened into a voluminous crack directly on the climbing route, Anne Dillinger wrapped a bright red piece of cloth to the top of her alpenstock and placed it in the snow near the ice hole to warn others of the hazard on the descent.
Only two weeks after this eventful Hood climb, Anne went south to take part in the Mazama Annual Outing on Mt. Shasta. This was no small feat, as the trip from Portland to Mt. Shasta was long and involved, the climb itself was challenging, and climbers on her team were suffering the effects of elevation on Shasta’s flanks. On the day of the summit attempt, she soldiered on with the people who felt well enough to make it to the top, and the Oregonian reported, “‘the indomitable Anne Dillinger was, as usual, the first Portland woman to reach the summit’ that day.”
Women Influential from the Start
Strong Mazama women like Anne Dillinger weren’t a rarity. Women were enthusiastic participants during the first moments of the organization’s existence. On the 1894 Mazamas founding climb on the summit of Mt. Hood, 19 percent of the Above: Women Mazama members who reached the summit of Mt. Adams during the 1913 Annual Outing. Anne Dillinger is lying in front of the group. VM1995.008 Mt. Adams Collection climbers who summited were women. Fay Fuller, a journalist and eager climber from Washington, not only participated in the founding climb; she became a member of the first board of officers as the official historian. Ms. Fuller was a powerhouse of Pacific Northwest mountaineering at the time. She was the first woman to summit Mt. Rainier, in 1890, at only 20 years old. She had already helped found two other Pacific Northwest climbing organizations—the Washington Alpine Club and the Tacoma Alpine Club—prior to her participation as a founding member of the Mazamas. She continued to play a leadership role as Mazama Vice President from 1895–1897.
An All-Women Climb Shows What’s Possible in Leadership
After Anne Dillinger’s historic lead, nearly two decades would pass before women would play the role of leader again. The first all women’s Mazama climb, organized by Bea (DeLacy) McNeil and Margaret Lynch, changed the landscape for climb leadership by women in the Mazamas. Four ladies and a dog made it to the summit of Hood in July of 1932, with women filling the roles of both climb leader and assistant leader on the same climb. Following this climb, women assisted more often on official climbs led by men, but it wasn’t until the early 1950s that women were routinely leading climbs for the Mazamas.
Bea DeLacy joined the Mazamas in 1920 and actively climbed for decades. She was the first woman to climb the Jefferson Park Glacier route on Mt. Jefferson in 1933, an icy and difficult affair whose summit was hard-earned. She received the Mazama 16 Peaks Award #6 in 1938 and went on to spend many of her most active climbing years with the Alpine Club of Canada. In 1948, at the age of 51, she led a climb of Peyto Peak’s loose, rocky summit in Canada and graduated six beginner climbers on their qualifying climb, with two men as assistants.
Raising the Bar for Climbing Achievements by Women
Ida Zacher Darr, a highly skilled Mazama climber in the 1930s and 1940s, was frequently a member of climbing parties that made first ascents in the area. She climbed with a team who made the first ascent on the south face of Mt. Washington in 1940. A celebrated historic accomplishment was her participation in a first ascent on St. Peter’s Dome in the Columbia River Gorge. This formidable basalt tower had tempted climbers for decades. The Wy‘East Climbers party that included Ida Darr worked for weeks on a route that allowed them to finally be the first to stand atop the dome. This was a highly coveted achievement at the time among local mountaineers.
Ida played a pivotal role on multiple scouting trips and on an eventual rain, blizzard, and avalanche-addled first ascent of the formidable Bonanza Peak in the Chelan area in 1937. After several years of research and attempts, she and husband Everett Darr were with the great Joe Leuthold, Curtis Ijames, and Barrie James as they worked their way to the summit of Bonanza Peak. Close to 1,000 feet from the summit, Everett Darr couldn’t continue on, and Ida Darr stayed with him, sacrificing her own summit for her husband’s safety. Avalanches on the route made the climbing hazardous for the entire party. It took the Leuthold group over 8 hours to ascend the last 1,000 feet and 5 hours to descend.
During one of several Bonanza Peak scouting efforts, Ida left camp and completed a solo first ascent of nearby Martin Peak in 1936, a huge feat for a woman climber at the time. She was one of the first women to serve on the Climbing Committee, from 1943–1945. When she and her husband saw a need for improved access to high quality climbing gear, they opened the Mountain Shop (initially the Nestledown Outdoor Shop), a business that continues to cater to skiers and climbers in Portland today. Ida was a skilled seamstress as well as climber: She sewed the shop’s signature sleeping bags and backpacks for local Mazamas and the Wy’east Climbers in the 30s and 40s.
The experiences of these trailblazing Mazama women from the late 1800s through the 1940s showed what was possible and inspired the generations of those who followed them. In our next installment we will pick up in the years following World War II, when Mazama women hit their stride and became a permanent presence as leaders on the yearly climb schedule.
Notable Accomplishments By Mazama Women By The 1940s
First woman to summit
■ Rooster Rock: Margaret Redman (1915)
■ St. Peter’s Dome: Ida Darr (1940)
16 Peak Award winners
■ 1937
□ Mabel Petty #3
□ Maxine Faircourt #5
■ 1938
□ Bea DeLacy McNeil #6
□ Martha Darcy #10
■ 1941
□ Marion Clarke #19
