Project Alpine Spirit with Becky Coles — Women's Alpine Adventure Club

4000m peaks, all female teams and first female ascents featured in our penultimate Alpine Stories with Rebecca Coles last Thursday.

Last summer (2019) Becky Coles, along with Mo Barclay and Lou Beetlestone, established Project Alpine Spirit with the aim to be the first all female team to climb all 4000m peaks in the Alps. They had a fantastic season, starting off with summits on skis, and then taking advantage of changeable conditions completed 56 peaks. Becky had planned to return this summer to complete the list of 82 but due to the Covid pandemic has been unable to do so.

Becky talks us through the planning and logistics of such a trip and also shared some of her favourite peaks and routes with us.

As well as recounting their trip, Becky also told us about the history of female mountaineers in the Alps, covering the main players and their successes. Many of routes that the team climbed last summer had links to these rule-breaking female climbers and Becky tells us how they enjoyed finding out out these characters and the stories behind each mountain. However, one similarity was the lack of information about these women and their climbs. Much of the history was written by the male climbers of the time and only a few details of female ascents were recorded. One woman that we do know quite a bit of information about was Elizabeth Le Blond, a Dubliner, who wrote an autobiography following several ‘manless ascents’ and pioneering winter ascents.

Listen to Becky’s talk to learn more about the Alpine 4000m Peaks and the women that first climbed them. After the talk Becky answers questions about picking your first 4000m peak, how to prepare and the importance of acclimitisation.