Sixteen of their stories - sometimes published under the name of a male relative, sometimes under anonymous bylines such as "a Lady" - are here recovered and collected for the first time.

The race to climb Everest catapulted mountain climbing, with its accompanying images of conquest and sport, into the public sphere on a global scale. But as a metaphor for the pinnacle of human achievement, mountaineering remains the preserve of traditional white male heroism. False Summit unpacks gender politics in the expedition narratives and memoirs of mountaineers in the Himalayas and the Karakoram. Why are women still a minority in the world's highest places? Julie Rak proposes that the genre has itself reached a "false summit" – a peak that proves not to be the pinnacle – and that mountaineering is not ready to welcome other ways of climbing or other kinds of climbers. For more than two centuries mountaineering, as an activity and as an ideal, has helped shape how the self is understood within the context of conquest, adventure, and proximity to risk. As climbing shows signs of becoming more diverse, Rak asks why change is so hard to achieve and why gender bias and other inequities exist in climbing at all. Exploring classic and lesser-known expedition accounts from Everest, K2, and Annapurna, False Summit helps us understand why mountaineering remains one of the most important ways to articulate gender identities and politics.

For women intrigued by the sport of climbing but intimidated by its male dominance and stereotype as “extreme,” Girl on the Rocks is a monumental resource, providing instructions on technique, strength, and mental agility from a woman’s perspective. Through the sage advice of one of the world’s foremost female climbers and the lens of an internationally acclaimed photographer, women learn that climbing is more fun than dangerous, that overcoming fear can boost self-esteem, and that the fitness benefits for women are tremendous. Most women learn climbing from men, but the sport is different fora woman, both physically and psychologically—and it is empowering for women to learn about climbing from “girls” who’ve been on the rocks themselves. The numerous photos in this full-color guide do wonders to clearly explain the various techniques, equipment, and styles of climbing for women. Further bringing the sport to life, author Katie Brown presents her interviews with numerous female climbers—from a young girl to a sixty-something professional climber—to learn what the sport has done for them.

In a time when a woman's sphere was decidedly limited to hearth and family, a number of courageous women were stepping out, stepping up, and making history far from the comforts of the homefire. "Women on High" will thrill readers with tales of dangerous summit attempts, blinding whiteouts, and narrow escapes; and transfix mountain historians with details of first ascents, period gear, and first-hand accounts.

This book is the first edited collection to offer an intersectional account of gender in mountaineering adventure sports and leisure. It provides original theoretical, methodological, and empirical insights into mountain spaces as sites of socio-cultural production and transformation. The book shows how gender matters in the twenty-first century, and illustrates that there is a need for greater efforts to mainstream difference in representations and governance structures if we are to improve equality in adventure, sporting and leisure spaces. The interdisciplinary volume represents scholars from theoretical as well as applied perspectives across adventure, tourism, sport science, sports coaching, psychology, geography, sociology and outdoor studies.

Since the Pikes Peak gold rush in the mid-nineteenth century, women have gone into the mountains of Colorado to hike, climb, ski, homestead, botanize, act as guides, practice medicine, and meet a variety of other challenges, whether for sport or for livelihood. Janet Robertson recounts their exploits in a lively, well-illustrated book that measures up to its title, The Magnificent Mountain Women. Arlene Blum provides a new introduction to this edition.

Women Rewriting Boundaries expands the work of gender and literary scholars by offering fresh insights on how to read travel writing by women. It analyzes the connections between class, gender, physicality, and sexuality as found in nineteenth-century literature. The authors discuss the myriad ways in which women writers reinforced and challenged Victorian social norms. Inspired by a special topics panel, “Women Writing Boundaries,” presented at the 2013 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association’s annual convention, this edited collection will be a thought-provoking resource for college- level humanities and gender studies students and their instructors.