of that fiend popularly known as Jack the Ripper, but in the latter pages of one edition, I saw a mention of Alice Baker-Greene. It was the merest snippet, a paragraph only, stating that the renowned climber had died upon the slopes of the Teufelstreppe in an attempt to summit the mountain out of season. There was no byline on the piece, and I flapped it aside in irritation. I rummaged through a few more issues until I found a proper tribute. This one was more informative, detailing Miss Baker-Greene’s history as part of the noteworthy Baker-Greene climbing family. Her grandparents had begun the tradition, using the Pennines as their training ground. They took along their son, who soon distinguished himself as one of the youngest men ever to summit the Matterhorn. He was an ambitious youth, determined to gain access to peaks previously unchallenged by Englishmen—notably the Himalayas. There was a brief mention of his demise in the Karakoram and his father’s later death in an avalanche in the Andes. The only surviving member of the family was the elder Mrs. Baker-Greene, who had taken charge of her orphaned young granddaughter. She had curtailed her climbing in order to raise the child, but when she discovered the girl perched atop a substantial deposit of talus, she realized that it would be futile to think she could keep young Alice from mountaineering. The elder Mrs. Baker-Greene had resumed her travels, taking the girl with her when school terms permitted, teaching her everything she knew about the pursuit.
By the time she was twenty, Alice Baker-Greene had surpassed her family’s achievements, becoming the first woman to summit Coropuna. She gained fame for never shying from a challenge, setting herself impossible tasks and working doggedly at them until she achieved them. She was the first to climb without male porters or guides on the grounds that her accomplishments would never be recognized if there was the slightest possibility that a man might be credited with the work. She led teams of amateur lady climbers around the world in order to finance her solo climbs upon the more demanding peaks. She was outspoken, arguing forcefully for admission to the various mountaineering clubs that refused her entry on the grounds of her sex.
The piece went on to describe the contretemps that arose on the fateful expedition to South America with Douglas Norton, adding rather more colorful detail than the lady herself had included when she had related the tale to me. According to the Daily Harbinger, upon the descent of El Cielo, she had publicly horsewhipped Douglas Norton, challenging him to a duel and claiming that he had stolen her summit. In return, he had laughed at her and claimed that El Cielo was no longer fit to climb since a woman had touched its summit. It was the last time she climbed with a man. From then on, she climbed alone or with her ladies, proving her achievements by planting a small green banner blazoned with her name at each peak. When guides removed her banners to call her accomplishments into question, she had begun to climb with photographic equipment, hauling the heavy camera to the summit in order to prove her success. I thought of the collection of photographs hung along the stairs of the Curiosity Club, silent testimony to one woman’s determination to prove her worth.
“I wish we had met again, Alice,” I murmured as I paged through the newspaper to find the conclusion of the piece. “I think we would have got on rather well.”
The rest of the article discussed her political leanings. Rebelling against the cult of True Womanhood with its insistence upon domestic virtue and bodily delicacy, Alice Baker-Greene had been a vehement advocate of fresh air and robust exercise, putting forth the notion not only that were women strong enough physically to endure the arduous requirements of mountaineering, but that they were better suited to the challenges of solitude or cooperation that different expeditions required. She claimed women were, by nature and nurture, more adaptable and easygoing than men, better able to govern their tempers and work in harmony with circumstances rather than against them. She detailed the numerous examples of men who had perished on mountaintops from their stubborn refusal to accept that conditions had turned murderous. She did not have to cite her father and grandfather as examples. It was well-known that on her grandfather’s fatal climb, her grandmother had protested against the prevailing wind, pointing