In reply to mcawle:
> I’m not opposed to the idea that she was first O2/unsupported, but I’m just interested in the definitions at play I guess. I can see the argument for example that Lydia Bradey may have used Spanish ‘infrastructure’ like tents on the route although I’m not sure if she did or if she carried all her own stuff etc.
> Don’t mean to be splitting hairs on the wider thrust of the article or the achievements of Alison Hargreaves.
Yes, it's a good article and I think important to reiterate these non-climbing aspects of Alison's life, which are actually far more important than climbing.
That they reared again in the life of Tom, with another tragic ending, makes those later films hard to watch. To see the inherited attitudes of Tom and the role of Ballard makes me both sad and angry.
I don't know the context of the Toynbee piece at the time but is that quote that 'savage'? Maybe. But I would have gone even further down this route and said that the shocking double standards mean that men should be held to the same 'standards' and criticism as women, shifting the perspective that it's not women doing the 'wrong' thing, but fathers doing the 'wrong' thing, even if society accepts and applauds it. A subtle change in angle.
On the definitions side of things, Alison was not solo, as there were plenty of others on the route with her (from whom she refused offers of cups of tea etc) and certainly not "completely solo" as the article says. In mountaineering there is no 'unaided' or 'unsupported' categories for this stuff - for anyone. Alison used the ladder fixed by the Chinese, and the route stamped down by Sherpas, following (if not using) the line of ropes also fixed by Sherpas.
On the south side in 1988 Lydia used the ladders, ropes, path and camps etc* of the other teams there, even if her NZ team mates didn't get very high. Her claims were doubted by many, including Elizabeth Hawley, for several reasons, most of them rubbish, though it later came to be accepted (rightfully IMO), particularly once the Spanish corrected the record on how their comments were misconstrued at the time. Hall and Ball were probably just jealous Lydia was stronger than them and were worried about getting in trouble for changing route. Those initial doubts cancelled Lydia's opportunity for any spotlight or benefits that might have come with it and created a quasi-void by 1995 in which Alison was considered by some to be the first woman to climb Everest without bottled oxygen.
*edit: minutes after writing the above, I saw a 2019 Fbook post from Lydia pop up in my newsfeed:
"...I climbed Everest once simply as a young ambitious mountaineer in 1988, and I was very alone, no oxygen (first female ascent no O2), no fixed rope above South Col 8000m (which protects you from losing your way) no climbing buddy, no weather forecasting."
Post edited at 20:28