Yes, gender is critical to the story of the 1970 Denali Damsels expedition on North America’s tallest summit. The six women just wanted to climb mountains, and in the late 1960s they had to fight male misogyny and suspicion to do so. But Thirty Below is a gripping tale of human striving, where combustible personalities face off at high altitude, with life and death at stake. Author Cassidy Randall skillfully weaves the traditional elements of an alpine epic—the shredded tents, the frozen toes, the dank snow cave—with the more fascinating account of radically different people trying to form a team (maybe) to get what they want, in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments, where true selves are exposed in the wind.
Women were expected to climb in skirts, an outrageous norm that left them struggling with heavy fabric, often wet with snow, encumbering their legs and feet. Le Blond often shucked her skirt once out of sight of towns, villages, or huts, and hiked in her knickers (loose-fitting trousers gathered at the calf that served as underthings for women), and she would retrieve her skirt at the end of the climb. Once, an avalanche carried away her skirt from its hiding place. Back in town, she had to hide behind a tree while her guide fetched another from her hotel room. He returned carrying an evening gown.
Chapter 3, page 27