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Gyalgen Peak: Scotland the brave - Ladies’ version
Jan 21, 2005 03: 22 EST
Mountaineering is a Men’s Business and lady climbers are – let’s find a nice word here – ‘eccentric’. This was the common opinion in the early decades of XX century.
Even today, girls need to prove themselves more than men to be taken seriously. Female climbers such as Wanda Rutkiewicz or the current 8000-baggers Edurne Pasaban, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, and Nives Meroi are still considered ‘exceptional’.
Scotland the brave - Ladies’ version
And there have been exceptions indeed. In 1955, three adventurous Scottish women set out to explore the Jugal Himal in Nepal Himalaya, an area that had yet to be entered by explorers - of any gender. Monica Jackson, Elizabeth Stark and Evelyn Camrass discovered, named and climbed for the first time the 20,175 ft. Gyalgen Peak. Their adventure was recounted in a book titled Tents in the Clouds (Seal Press 2000). It chronicled their intrepid foray into this uncharted area of the Himalaya when women explorers traveling without men were unheard of.
50 years after, American guide and climber Becky Harrison is following these ladies tracks through the Jugal Himal and up to the top of Gyalgen Peak.
One repetition and a new first climb
“My goal is to climb the same peak during the 50th anniversary year of their discovery,” Becky told ExWeb. “I also plan to scale an unclimbed peak in the same mountain range and name it Ladies Peak in their honor.”
Becky has already explored the surroundings of the Peak for preparation and also made a trip to Scotland, to meet the two remaining team-members from the 50’s expedition: Monica and Evelyn, now in their late 70’s. They compared stories and photograph, chatted about the old and the new, and were really excited with Becky’s project.
Off the beaten track Himalayas
The area of the Jugal Himal sits on Nepal’s border with Tibet. “It is wild and untouched by the tourist industry – explains Becky. ”In fact, only a handful of people have ever trekked along these trails, even in modern times. Only two other expeditions have ever received climbing permits to the area, both Japanese expeditions in 1960 and 61, and there is no record of either reaching the summit of Gyalgen Peak. I've done some research and found that they went up the wrong valley and ended up climbing an unnamed peak and naming it. But in the history of the Jugal Himal only three teams have been issued permits and only one summited, that would be the ladies from Scotland.Ours would be the first climbing party to reach the mountain since the 1955 expedition.”
For Becky, there is a good reason to climb such an isolated peak: “Earlier in my mountaineering career, reading the book Tents in the Clouds gave me the courage to push my limits. Now I’d like to honor these three brave Scotswomen, draw attention to their accomplishment, and hopefully inspire a new generation of women to explore their own limits as well.
Hey kids! I'm coming with you!
Nori Kizaki, a Japanese climber now living in Colorado, is coming with Becky as well as a “demanded” Sherpa staff: “Due to climbing permit rules pertaining to this peak we have to have 3 Nepalis as part of the summit team. This is the case with a list of certain peaks, which were considered "newly opened" a couple of years ago. Some of these peaks had been climbed, but access to a permit had been denied for many years. So we can't climb the peak without working with 3 Sherpas and they must be part of the summit team. We will not be guided, per say,but will share in carrying loads and sections of the climbing.” A cameraman filming the climb will be in the team as well.
The climbing team is closed, but the trek up to BC is open to anyone interested. And the first lady interested has been no other than Evelyn McNichol, one of the original 1955 climbers! Proving that age is a state of mind, the tough Scottish lady plans to join the trekking team. There will be plenty of climbing stories in the dining tent.
Becky Harrison has been climbing and exploring in the USA and the Himalayas for years. She runs a trekking company, the Adventurous Trekker.
Images from the 1955 Ladies expedition, and of Becky in the Khumbu Valley (bottom picture), courtesy of the expedition
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