Irene Beardsley (formerly ''Ortenburger'' and ''Miller''; born 1935) is an American mountaineer, and along with Vera Komarkova, the first woman to climb

Annapurna Annapurna (; ne, अन्नपूर्ण) is a mountain situated in the Annapurna mountain range of Gandaki Province, north-central Nepal. It is the tenth highest mountain in the world at above sea level and is well known for the difficu ...

, the tenth highest mountain in the world.

Early life

Beardsley was inspired to climb mountains after seeing the

Teton Range The Teton Range is a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in North America. It extends for approximately in a north–south direction through the U.S. state of Wyoming, east of the Idaho state line. It is south of Yellowstone National Park and ...

during a family holiday as a child. Beardsley began climbing in 1953 after joining the Stanford Alpine Club. She describes herself as not a natural athlete, but nonetheless a keen climber who went on trips around

Yosemite Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...

and the Tetons. In 1956, she married fellow climber Leigh Ortenburger. She majored in physics, graduating in 1957. In 1965, Beardsley earned her PhD, as just the fourth woman to graduate with a physics PhD from Stanford.

Climbing

Beardsley climbed extensively in the Tetons and Peru, including making the first ascent (1957) of ''Irene's Arete'', Disappointment Peak, in Grand Teton National Park. She travelled to Nepal in 1961 with her husband, as he was invited to be a part of

Edmund Hillary Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached t ...

Makalu Makalu ( ne, मकालु हिमाल, Makālu himāl; zh, t=馬卡魯峰, p=Mǎkǎlǔ fēng) is the fifth highest mountain in the world at . It is located in the Mahalangur Himalayas southeast of Mount Everest, in Nepal. One of th ...

expedition. Once she arrived she was forbidden by Hillary to set foot on the mountain, despite her climbing credentials. In 1965, along with Sue Swedlund, she made the first all-female ascent of the North Face of the

Grand Teton Grand Teton is the highest mountain in Grand Teton National Park, in Northwest Wyoming, and a classic destination in American mountaineering. Geography Grand Teton, at , is the highest point of the Teton Range, and the second highest peak in t ...

. While working as a physicist at IBM, she was invited to be part of the

American Women's Himalayan Expedition The American Women's Himalayan Expedition was a 1978 expedition to Annapurna which placed the first two women, and first Americans, on its summit. The expedition was led by Arlene Blum and consisted of thirteen women, and six sherpas. On October 1 ...

to Annapurna. At the time women were often rejected from major expeditions, and the all female nature of this one was a rare opportunity. They raised money for the expedition by selling T-shirts with the slogan, ''A Woman's Place is on Top''. After a month of climbing Beardsley and Komarkova became the first women to climb Annapurna.

Notable climbs

Mount Moran Mount Moran () is a mountain in Grand Teton National Park of western Wyoming, USA. The mountain is named for Thomas Moran, an American western frontier landscape artist. Mount Moran dominates the northern section of the Teton Range rising above ...

(1963); assorted first ascents in the area *

Palcaraju Palcaraju (from Quechua ''pallqa, p'allqa, p'alqa'' forked, branched, fork, ''rahu'' snow, ice, mountain with snow,) is a mountain in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range in the region of Ancash within the Peruvian Andes The Andes, Andes M ...

(1964); second ascent *North Face of the

(1965); first all-female ascent *

(1978); first American ascent; first female ascent

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beardsley, Irene Living people 1935 births American mountain climbers

Early life

Climbing

Notable climbs

See also

References