BREAKING
THE RULES: ONE WOMAN'S CLIMB TO FAME
BY JACKIE GOLD EANFF CRAG & CANYON
STAFF
Not all rock climbers can appreciate the beauty of the
range that surrounds them while also realizing how the
very peaks they conquered rendered their humanity all
that more real.
Georgia Engelhard did, however, writing in her book Lake
Louise Days that, "They were all mine -my beautiful, private
world of mountains. Yet at the same time, I felt how infinitesimal
I was!”
As a young girl Engelhard, born in 1902 in New York was afraid
of heights. A member of a family that was very active culturally,
she experienced from a young age the thirst for travel, which
would dog her throughout the rest of her life.
Her family members were incredibly diverse in their talents.
With a father that was a lawyer and musician, Alfred Stieglitz,
a famous photographer, as an uncle, and Georgia O'Keeffe, a
famous artist, as an aunt, it was no wonder that Engelhard
herself showed an inclination towards the arts. Dabbling in
art while spending time on the family estate at Lake George
, N.Y. , she impressed her artistic aunt at the tender age
of 13.
At the age of 21 Engelhard was enrolled at Vassar College
, but found the atmosphere stifling. "Maybe I'm foolish
- maybe I'll be disappointed or disillusioned - but rather
that than this horrible passivity~ this demoralizing stagnation," she
wrote. With that Engelhard transferred to Columbia University
to study art which while stimulating, did not provide the rush
she was looking for. She began to study photography as well
as watercolour painting, and took horse riding lessons
as well, proving herself to be an apt student in all fields.
Yet it was not until a trip to Mount Rainier Park in Washington
in 1926 that she truly found her calling.
While previously Engelhard had referred to mountain climbing
as "a perfectly idiotic sport" she was persuaded
by her father to try the sport, and found it to her liking.
In fact she took to the sport so well that on her first climb
she and her guide made the climb in half a day on a climb that
usually took experienced climbers an entire day.
Later that year Engelhard and her family visited the Canadian
Rockies, where she climbed Pinnacle Mountain , as well as Mount
Temple and Mount Whyte .
"In those early days there were no climbing schools for
the novice. You learned while climbing -watching the guide's
motions and taking in the few instructions he gave you," she
wrote.
By 1929 Engelhard a consummate climber. She conquered
nine peaks in nine day that year, and said, "After my
last climb, the day of departure, I got up at 4 a.m. A silver
full moon flooded the calm, mirror like lake with silver, and
silver were the Victoria Glaciers beyond. With my easy
loping mountaineers stride less than two hours brought me to
the summit of Mount St. Piran, 3,000 feet above Lake Louise
. The lake and valley were still in deep shadow, but the surrounding
peaks, all I had climbed, were bathed in golden rosy light.
I was seized by an indescribable ecstasy, filled with
the joy of conquest. They were all mine - my beautiful, private,
world of mountains. Yet, at the same time, I felt how infinitesimal
I was. It was an unforgettable experience!”
In 1931 she returned to Banff National Park to climb Mount
Victoria eight times. Seven of the ascents were for
footage for a movie being filmed called She Climbs to Conquer.
Filmed by the Canadian Pacific Railroad cameraman Bill Oliver,
the trips were relatively by the book, except for one time
when they were caught in a thunderstorm. "The thunder
was deadening and boomed back and forth from the rock walls,
the lightning struck the rocks, causing them to sing and spit
flame. Our nailed boots and ice axes also spit fire, our hair
stood on end," Engelhard wrote. She was then only 26 years
old.
Visiting a total of 15 summers over the 30 years that followed
after her first ascent in Banff National Park , Engelhard
was as passionate about rock climbing as any of her male
counterparts of the same era.
It was in the Canadian Rockies where she met her husband to
be, Eaton 'Tony' Cromwell, a veteran climber. They married
in 1947 after having made several ascents together in
the Rockies. After they married they travelled to Europe
where they spent the remainder of their life together
conquering European ranges, never again to return to the Canadian
mountains where Engelhard had first whetted her appetite for
the demanding sport. She later commented that she had no desire
to return for fear that her illusions would be shattered by
the inevitable changes to the wilderness that would have
occurred while she was away.
“Why do I like climbing? Why do you like bridge? I don't know.
It's a disease and chronic I fear. Perhaps it's the excitement;
perhaps it's the beauty of the escape from conventional
comforts," she wrote.
Today, Mount Engelhard proudly bears her surname, a testament
to her youthful expeditions in the Canadian Rockies. The
mountain, located in the Sunwapta River Valley three kilometres
north-northeast of the east summit of Mount Stutfield, can
be seen from Highway 93 North.
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