Alison Hargreaves - Was she right or wrong ???

Alison Hargreaves was a great mountaineer....Twenty years on she's in the news because her Son has climbed or is about to climb K2 the mountain that killed her..Can't remember if he has completed .....He's already done Everest.

Hargreaves records include....Being the first woman to climb Everest without Oxygen......The first Woman to solo all the great North faces of the Alps in one season....She was regarded as the greatest female climber of her time (90s) and climbed both K2 and Everest.....

However tragedy struck on her way down from K2 as she got caught in hundred mile an hour winds and fell from the mountain......Dying at the age of 32 !!!

Even more tragic was she had two small kids at the time...

After she died ....Hargreaves was skewered by female journalists for risking her life with a young family........Some pretty disrespectful stuff as I remember....

She was the main bread winner but a Mother is cetainly more important than a Father in most people's eyes.....(Fathers for justice may disagree)

My view is that you only live once......and it's not as If she set out to get caught in a storm...

My guess is the female hacks that skewered her were jealous of a free spirited woman who achieved great things......Some of the same hacks who seem to promote feminism daily......

I don't know......One thing I do know is .....The Hargreaves story does split opinion..

I kind of feel the same about this Worsley chap. You can raise £100k walking from Lands End to John O'Groats. Walking across South Pole unaided was as much for his personal goals as it was for charity. And you have to say it could be seen as pretty selfish given he has a wife and kids.

Seems to be a dark ages thing...Where women go getters are frowned on because they aren't fitting some old fashioned mode...

Though Hargreaves was in more mortal danger than this guy one would think....It's not as if any of them expected to check out.....

Though one might add Hargreaves by being in Nepal so much spent quite a bit of time away from her kids....which probably wasn't ideal..

Or the fact that newspapers printed stories about her husband knocking her around when she was at home..

"The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves" Is well worth a read..

Truss

Well, professional mountaineering is a hell of a hazardous way to make your living, so she must have understood the risks she was taking and was willing to accept them.

You do raise an interesting point about society's inherent sexism, and particularly the 'women against women' angle - as a society we are undoubtedly more tolerant of men putting themselves in hazardous situations than we are women: there are few if any top level racing drivers, test pilots or Alaskan crab fishermen. Obviously some of that is down to the physical nature of the jobs, but I think as well there is an element of (very) old fashioned 'men as the hunter-gatherers, women as the carers'

As for Henry Worsley, I obviously have sympathy for his family and can accept he was a very brave if perhaps slightly fool-hardy man. One of the reasons Shackleton is a hero of mine is that he was sensible enough on his first expedition to turn round when within striking distance of the Pole to make sure he and his men got back alive - Worsley, with the advantages offered by modern technology, probably waited a day too long to call for help.

Shackleton is more of a hero for his amazing trip 800 miles around elephant island when the Endurance sunk....

A feat of leadership perhaps unparallelled in the modern era....Didn't lose a man..

Everyone should read that story....

"We balled with the energy of men fighting for our lives"

A great explorer....Great quote from his wife when he died in the Antarctic......When they asked if they should bring him home......"He already is home".,..

dummy_half wrote:...One of the reasons Shackleton is a hero of mine is that he was sensible enough on his first expedition to turn round when within striking distance of the Pole to make sure he and his men got back alive - Worsley, with the advantages offered by modern technology, probably waited a day too long to call for help.

What was it that they said? Something along the lines of "Scott if you wanted organisation. Shackleton if you wanted to get back alive.". Something like that anyway.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Shackleton is more of a hero for his amazing trip 800 miles around elephant island when the Endurance sunk....

A feat of leadership perhaps unparallelled in the modern era....Didn't lose a man..

Everyone should read that story....

"We balled with the energy of men fighting for our lives"

A great explorer....Great quote from his wife when he died in the Antarctic......When they asked if they should bring him home......"He already is home".,..

Yeah. The story of that expedition is truly gob-smacking. Rowed from Antartica to South Georgia to get help with a couple of others didn't he? In an open boat?!! In the Southern Ocean?!!! Then climbed over South Georgia(!) to get to a whaling(?) station? The fact they didn't lose a single man on that trip is incredible.
They were gone so long they didn't even know there was a war on (WWI).

Brilliant wasn't it...

Always thought Scott got a bad rap though......He died close to one ton depot (11 miles) and he overcame unseasonable bad weather to get there.....So near so far !!

Losing Evans straight after the pole didn't help either....

Shackleton was the better leader but unfortunately Scott is the bigger legend because he died (like Mallory and Irvine did on Everest)....and it's a great story..

People find romance in sacrifice........Loved reading these stories when I was a kid...Nobody died like the British at the turn of the Century (Titanic 1912)

Scott stole Amundsen's thunder...From books I've read he wasn't best pleased..

A mountain??

that's as far from a kitchen as you will ever get.

symbolically speaking

Surprised I had to wait 8 comments for that kind of joke...

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:A mountain??

that's as far from a kitchen as you will ever get.

symbolically speaking

Do you not tire of being such a boor?

Are you okay P .. You seem a little short today...

ONETWO is a harmless enough idiot..

Pr4wn wrote:

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:A mountain??

that's as far from a kitchen as you will ever get.

symbolically speaking

Do you not tire of being such a boor?

Given you are speaking to a man who will read your post and assume you have spelled bore incorrectly I would guess not.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Are you okay P .. You seem a little short today...

ONETWO is a harmless enough idiot..

Just sick of these ridiculous comments mate. Debate on this forum would be enriched if we had a larger member base. Garbage like that makes us seem like some pub clique.

Pr4wn wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Are you okay P .. You seem a little short today...

ONETWO is a harmless enough idiot..

Just sick of these ridiculous comments mate. Debate on this forum would be enriched if we had a larger member base. Garbage like that makes us seem like some pub clique.

That thread at the top of the page saying that N&CA topics will be binned probably isn't helping the member base, in fairness.

Yes, rather than the topics themselves, I'm sure that's the first thing that prospective members look at.

Don't be so touchy.

Pr4wn wrote:

ONETWOFOREVER wrote:A mountain??

that's as far from a kitchen as you will ever get.

symbolically speaking

Do you not tire of being such a boor?

I'm not Dutch South African mate.

And my comment was in praise of Hargreaves for being an extraordinary driven woman.

My supreme wit is obviously lost on you.

Anybody capable of doing these superhuman feats must find real life quite mundane and boring, they need the challenge whether it's right or wrong for a mother or a father to do it is something only the children can answer. Shackleton is a prime example of that, despite poor health he needed to push himself to the limits, in the real world he was a borderline alcoholic in heavy debt.