The Sherpas observe them with an air suspended somewhere between amused and surprised. They received precise instructions from the local authorities: those three don’t go up. Too risky for everyone. If they go home. In conclusion the Himalayas are not for women. Those three would be Monica Jackson, Elizabeth Stark and Evelyn Camrass. Distinctive features: all Scottish, all friends, all passionate about mountaineering. The year is 1955 and the story that generated obstructionism and perplexity at the time was born from Jackson’s intuition.
She is Scottish, it was said, but she was born in Kotagiri, India, in 1920. Her parents were busy with a coffee plantation and she, having returned home, married and with two daughters, learned from an early age that the world is made to be traveled without fear. For years she has been a professional climber, as well as a member of the Scottish Climbing Group: she has experimented with British slopes, Norwegian mountain ranges and the Alps. Her husband, despite the times, approves and supports. There’s just one fact: Monica always aims higher. Having conquered one peak, he immediately seeks another. Except that the one he has in mind now is gigantic. Climbing the Himalayas is something else.
However, sharing a risk mitigates its scope. Monica talks about it to Elizabeth, who is a speech therapist in life, but is also a great fan of rather vertical businesses. And, sensationally, he receives his approval. The duo soon becomes a trio when Camrass, a general practitioner who between one patient and another contemplates the maps hanging on the wall, is also added. They portray the Himalayas.
So it is decided. The shipment consists of, we start in April. Easier said than done, because first you have to get the approval of the company British Everest Foundation and of theHimalayan Club of India. The problem is that they are exclusively made up of men: when they listen to the request of the three Scots, they giggle and shrug their shoulders. “Not at all, it’s too dangerous for three women”, they repeat. But the group is so insistent that everyone has to lay down their weapons. “Okay, if you care so much, go. It’s yours.” Monica and the others smile, but the best is yet to come.
They stop in India, then move to Kathmandu, Nepal, the elective base camp from which to try their hand at the undertaking. Here droves of Sherpas scratch their necks when they see them. The local authorities try to dissuade them and even threaten the guides themselves: “Don’t accompany them, it’s not for them and you risk it too”. Nothing. The will of Jackson, Stark and Camrass is fierce. They climb up with a huge 1,800kg baggage, four Sherpas to reveal the biggest dangers and around thirty porters.
The goal set in your head? Going deep into the Jugal Himal range, taking a bunch of photos, documenting everything. In two and a half months of climbing the group thus reaches totally unexplored points, such as the Phurbal Chyachumbu glacier and a new peak, at the height of 6,151 meters: they will call it Gyalzen Peak in honor of the name of the Sherpa who leads them. The three friends look at each other: they are the first female expedition in history to reach such a goal.
Go back in
homeland, they are welcomed as heroines, melting away initial skepticism like layers of butter. “Was it difficult?” the journalists ask. “Oh no, not at all. Like taking a walk“, they reply amused.