thumb|280px|North face of the [[Eiger]]

Alison Jane Hargreaves (17 February 1962 – 13 August 1995) was a British mountaineer. Her accomplishments included scaling Mount Everest alone, without supplementary oxygen or support from a Sherpa team, in 1995. She soloed all the great north faces of the Alps in a single season—a first for any climber. This feat included climbing the difficult north face of the Eiger in the Alps. Hargreaves also climbed Ama Dablam in Nepal.

Personal life

Hargreaves grew up in Belper, Derbyshire, and attended Belper High School.

She was six months pregnant with her first child, Tom, when she climbed the Eiger north face. Tom Ballard went on to become the first person to solo climb all of the six great north faces of the Alps in a single winter.

The great north faces of the Alps

In 1993, Hargreaves decided to solo climb the six great north faces of the Alps in a single season, and become the first person to do so.

The spring and summer weather were particularly bad that year, and she was forced to use alternative routes for the Grandes Jorasses and the Eiger. Without pictures to prove her success and with the use of alternative routes, the media and climbing community did not initially approve of her climb. In order to settle things, Hargreaves solo climbed the Croz spur on the north face of the Grandes Jorasses the following winter. With pictures taken from a professional photographer, the media and climbing community believed her claim.

K2 climb

thumb|right|330px|[[K2]]

In June 1995, Hargreaves joined an American team with a permit to climb K2. By 13 August 1995, the remnants of the US team, along with Hargreaves, had joined forces with a team from Canada and New Zealand at Camp 4, around above sea level, and at least 12 hours from the summit. Later that day, having joined with a Spanish team of mountaineers above Camp 4, New Zealander Peter Hillary, son of Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary, decided to turn back, noting that the weather that had been fine for the previous four days appeared to be changing. At 6:45 pm, in fine conditions, Hargreaves and Spaniard Javier Olivar reached the summit, followed by American Rob Slater, Spaniards Javier Escartín and Lorenzo Ortiz, and New Zealander Bruce Grant. All seven died in a violent storm while returning from the summit.

See also

  • Catherine Destivelle, French alpine climber
  • List of deaths on K2
  • The Last Mountain (2021 film)
  • Ed Douglas

References

Sources

  • Susan Frohlick, "'Wanting the Children and Wanting K2': The incommensurability of motherhood and mountaineering in Britain and North America in the late twentieth century," Gender, Place and Culture, 13:5 (October 2006): 477–490.
  • Peter H. Hansen, ‘Hargreaves, Alison Jane (1962–1995)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006
  • Hargreaves, Alison (1995). A Hard Day's Summer: Six Classic North Faces Solo. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
  • Jordan, Jennifer (2005.) Savage Summit: The True Stories of the First Five Women Who Climbed K2, The World's Most Feared Mountain. New York: William Morrow.

Bibliography

  • Stephen Venables (1995) Obituary 21 August 1995 Independent Digital News & Media
  • Alison Hargreaves, The Big Six alpinejournal.org.uk
  • (NYT obituary)