The mainstream media took this report at face value and exploited it, saying that Mauduit was perhaps not skilled enough to climb at altitude. However, many mountaineers quickly came to her defense. In a letter to the editor of the French magazine Montagne, climber Frederique Delrieu wrote, "Chantal lost her life by following her passion for the high altitude. She did not make a mistake." Delrieu added that jealousy over her accomplishments might have fueled the controversy.

Even more controversial was Hargreaves' death (along with six others), in a tragic storm on K2 in 1995. The popular media targeted her for being a professional climber and a mother. Dozens of articles lambasted her for leaving her two children at home in order to pursue a professional high-altitude climbing career, highlighting the double standard that still exists in the mountaineering community: Mothers who pursue big climbs are assumed to be more selfish than fathers who do the same.

British climber/authors Ed Douglas and David Rose, in their biography of Hargreaves Regions of the Heart, wrote that mountaineers, regardless of gender, have "agreed that to succeed at high-altitude mountaineering, you had to take risks. They had all done so and survived; to criticize Alison for doing the same would have been hypocrisy ... " And while the media backlash against Hargreaves didn't diminish the number of women who climb, neither did it have a long-term effect on the latent sexism in the general mountaineering community. Says cutting-edge alpinist Kitty Calhoun, a mother who has attempted the Karakoram's Latok I and III, "I think a double standard still exists. It still seems more acceptable for a dad to be a climber."

New Directions

The death of Hargreaves also came at the time of a significant shift in focus for female alpinists visting the Karakoram. Successful expeditions to the region no longer focussed on large, siege-style ascents. Instead, small groups with five or fewer members climbed quickly and with less equipment. Boskoff, who summitted Broad Peak in 1995 and Gasherbrum II in 1999, chooses this style of climbing.

"I prefer to acclimatize on another mountain and then climb an 8000er in one push," Boskoff explains. "It's simple, safer, and I enjoy it. I'm not climbing the same route again and again to acclimatize." In the summer of 2002 she attempted an alpine-style ascent of K2 with Charlie Fowler, but failed due to high winds and uncertain weather.

Calhoun prefers to climb in a party of just two, but sometimes goes with two parties of two. With this minimalist approach, she has attempted the North Ridge of 23,400-foot Latok I in 1993 and the West Face of 22,800-foot Latok III in 1998. Along with Julie Brugger, Andy DeKlerk, and Colin Grissom, she made it approximately one-third of the way up Latok I before the weather turned sour. On Latok III Calhoun, her now- husband Jay Smith, Steve Quinlan, and Ken Sauls attempted a highly technical new big-wall route. They were forced to abandon their attempt at over 19,000 feet after running out of food.

Abby Watkins, another top female ice, rock, and big-wall climber, and an Association of Canadian Mountain Guides certified guide, says she hasn't experienced much sexism within the climbing community, nor does she see much difference between the abilities of women and men. Like many Gen-X women, Watkins, an Australian expatriate living in Canada, says her parents "never really put gender limits on me. They encouraged me at whatever I was good at or what I desired to do." She also says that she has organized trips with women "not because they were women, but because they were my climbing partners."

In 1998, Watkins, along with New Zealander Nicola Woolford and Australian Vera Wong, established Excess Baggage (VI 5.10 A2+) on 19,000-foot Changi Tower in the Nangma Valley of the Karakoram's Hushe region. The route took seven days and ran the gamut from mixed to free to big-wall aid.

Accomplished British rock climber Kath Pyke agrees with Watkins, and said she has gone on expeditions with women simply because she has many women partners. "I just know these people on a different level because I've spent more time with them," says Pyke, who along with fellow Brits Glenda Huxter and Louise Thomas climbed 19,000-foot Beatrice Tower, on the north side of the Charakusa Valley (also in the Hushe region) in 1997. The threesome spent nine days linking cracks and corners with difficult traverses and blank faces. The route, a solidly graded 5.11 A3+, is one of only a few big walls in the Karakoram to be completed by an entirely female team, along with Excess Baggage.