Peak Connections: Finding Friendship in the Women's Alpine Adventure Club
Lucy's Perspective:
I’m on the bus to Cortina for the WAAC summer climbing meet in the Dolomites, a shy school girl again. I’m on my first big trip after lockdown, with a craving to push myself out of my comfort zone, both physically and socially. I’m anxiously anticipating the arrival of Eleanor, another woman joining the meet, who I know only through her WhatsApp photo and a couple of brief messages. What if we don’t get on? What if she’s a ‘proper’ climber and I realise I’m well out of my depth?
My worries but at ease the minute she bounced onto the bus and sat down next to me, the reason I had come all this way was reaffirmed. Here we were, two women with distinct journeys to this point – both literally and metaphorically – now allies in this movement of women pushing to be seen in the alpine world. Sharing our goals for the week and beyond, on that bus journey, I felt my fire for adventure being rekindled. The nerves had not exactly gone but had developed into something else; part excitement, part inspiration and part eagerness to prove myself. All simply by entering a space dedicated to women in the outdoors.
El and I quickly warmed to each other as we shared hilarity, attempting a 10-day food shop with our huge bags, and plenty more chat over hot chocolate whilst waiting for the afternoon storm to pass. It turned out that no-one else would arrive until the next day so, not wanting to waste any of our precious adventure time, the next morning we headed up the steepest Via Ferrata in the valley - and rapidly, before the rain came! There really is nothing that compares to deep chats about hormones, capitalism and all things in between, all whilst halfway up a rock face. And to be doing this with a strong, driven, mountain-loving woman...well, it just felt incredible
Once you’ve had an experience like that with someone, it’s pretty hard to get away from them, plus you become pretty close sharing a tent for a week. By the end of the week we'd became fast friends and met another lively soul - Elouise - where our love for mountain shenanigans, snacks and climbing all came together.
The three of us returned the next summer to the WAAC meet in the Saastal Valley, planning to tackle some 4000m peaks together. We’d only hung out once in-between these trips but I knew that I could trust them with my life, that we had the same approach to climbing and, most importantly, always had fun. As we summited the Hohlaubgrat route (PDII+) on the Allalinhorn 4027m the only unguided female only rope team we felt we can take on the world! The rest of the week saw us complete the infamous 14 pitch Jegihorn multipitch, via ferrata and another peak - The Nadlehorn (4327m) again the only female only rope team on the mountain that day. Completing these routes felt like a step forward in our alpine journey, and the three of us would not have been at this point without having met each other.
Joining communities like WAAC have gained us not only climbing partners but true friendship, mountain buddies for life! And now? Well, we hang out when we can, although Svalbard, Sheffield and Eryri are inconveniently far apart. We volunteer behind the scenes with WAAC, we’ve supported each other through our Mountain Leader qualifications and we’ve got plenty more adventure ideas in the pipeline – mountain buddies for life.