Thirty Below

Description

Thirty Below
by Cassidy Randall

ISBN: 9781419771538
Hardcover, new
Publication Date: 3/4/2025

Brief Description:
The gripping story of a group of female adventurers and their treacherous
pioneering ascent of Denali in 1970 Grace Hoeman dreamed of standing on top
of Denali. The tallest peak in North America, the fierce polar mountain
loomed large in many climbers’ imaginations, and Grace, a doctor in Alaska,
had come close to the top, only to be turned back by altitude sickness and
a storm that took the lives of seven fellow climbers in one remorseless
blow. Other expeditions denied her a place because of her gender, and when
a letter arrived from a climber in California named Arlene Blum, who’d only
been invited on expeditions if she would stay at base camp and cook for the
men, Grace got a defiant idea: she would organize and lead the first-ever
all-female ascent of the frozen Alaskan peak. Everyone told the “Denali
Damsels,” as the team called themselves, that it couldn’t be done: women
were incapable of climbing mountains on their own. Men had walked on the
moon; women still had not stood on the highest points on Earth. But these
six women were unwilling to be limited by sexists and misogynists. They
pushed past barriers in society at large, the climbing world, and their own
bodies. And then, when disaster struck at the worst time on their
expedition, they could either keep their wits and prove their mettle, or
die and confirm the worst opinions of men. Author Cassidy Randall draws on
extensive archival research and original interviews to tell an engrossing,
edge-of-the-seat adventure story about this forgotten group of climbers who
had the audacity to believe that women could walk alone in such
extraordinary and treacherous heights.