Opportunities and Tragedies

From 1900 to 1985, fewer than 100 women participated in any capacity on Karakoram expeditions, but between 1985 and 1990 over 100 women climbed in the region, with approximately half of those summitting their objectives.

Most significant during this five-year period was the fact that all-female expeditions proved women were capable of climbing big peaks with little or no male support. In 1983 Polish climbers Krystyna Palmowska and Anna Czerwinska, recipients of the Vera Watson/Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz grant from the AAC, attempted 26,400-foot Broad Peak. Palmowska and Czerwinska did not use guides or porters. The duo made two storm-thwarted attempts on the mountain and had their two highest camps destroyed by wind, requiring re-establishment before they could continue. On the day before their third summit attempt, the two women zipped from Basecamp to Camp III, a gain of 7000 vertical feet at extreme altitude, establishing a track through deep snow that was subsequently used by Swiss and British male-only expeditions. On summit day, Czerwinska was forced to turn back, but Palmowska summitted, completing the first all-female unsupported ascent of an 8000-meter peak.

Rutkiewicz also began to make further inroads into Karakoram mountaineering in the 1980s, leading an unsuccessful all-women's expedition to 28,253-foot K2 in 1982 and attempting Broad Peak with two other women in 1985. The following year, she joined the small French team of Michael Parmentier, and Maurice and Liliane Barrard in an attempt on K2's Abruzzi Ridge. All four members - none of whom used supplementary oxygen - reached the summit on June 23, with Rutkiewicz arriving ahead of the others to become the first woman to climb K2. After a short time on the summit, the team descended to their bivouac tent at 27,230 feet and spent the night there, rather than returning to Camp III at 25,900 feet. The following morning Parmentier started the descent to Camp III, with Rutkiewicz following shortly thereafter, and the Barrards the last to leave camp. As Rutkiewicz descended, she looked back to see the Barrards disappear into the swirling snow, never to be seen alive again. Liliane was found dead on July 19 at the base of the mountain, the victim of a several-thousand-foot fall; her husband's body was never recovered.

On August 4, a month and a half after Rutkiewicz and Barrard summitted, Julie Tullis of Great Britain became the third woman to summit K2, sans oxygen. She died three days later of exhaustion and exposure, trapped at 25,900 feet during a multi-day storm. In a well-documented season of success and setback on K2, the loss of two of climbing's top female high-altitude mountaineers was particularly acute.

Also on K2 that year was Catherine Freer - America's best female alpinist at the time - as part of an elite team of North American climbers that included Alex Lowe, George Lowe, Dave Cheesemond, and Steve Swenson. The group tackled the seldom-climbed North Ridge, but were ultimately unsuccessful. Freer pulled equal weight and reached the team's high point of 26,400 feet. In a blow to the U.S. climbing world, Freer died the following year with Cheesemond in a cornice collapse on the Hummingbird Ridge of Mount Logan.

It wasn't until 1992 that another woman climbed K2: Chantal Mauduit of France. After the Swiss team that she had joined abandoned their attempt, Mauduit hooked up with an international expedition that included Scott Fischer, Ed Viesturs, and Dan Mazur. On her summit day, she reached the top at 5 p.m. However, the following day she became snowblind and had to be escorted down the mountain. Despite the epic descent, Mauduit had started her high- altitude career with a flourish and went on to climb five more 8000-meter peaks without oxygen, including solos of Lhotse and Manaslu.

Loss and Questioning

The remaining three women to have summitted K2 died in the 1990s: In 1992 Rutkiewicz disappeared on Kangchenjunga; Alison Hargreaves of Great Britain died while descending from the summit of K2 in 1995; and Mauduit perished in an avalanche on Dhaulagiri in 1998.

When Rutkiewicz died, few people commented on anything other than the saddening loss of one of the world's most accomplished mountaineers, male or female. However, when Mauduit died, many in the climbing community questioned her presence in the high mountains. In part this was due to early partners reporting on her past inexperience, but also due to reports of her death, such as the 1998 news item from Outside which stated that Mauduit and her partner, Ang Tsering Sherpa, "either failed to dig their tent out from under a cover of fresh snow or neglected to turn off their camp stove."