Adventure and fun
The 100 years of the Pinnacle Club has seen women of all abilities and backgrounds enjoy various kinds of climbing and mountaineering: from the Greater Ranges to Snowdonia, and from ski mountaineering to potholing. The selection of adventures shown here provides a snapshot of the diversity of the club’s activities and the fun we’ve all had over the years.
Adventure map
A world view of Pinnacle Club Journal Articles coded by decade - click on the location for details about the articles and a link to the relevant Journal. Journey through time and space - and enjoy the trips.
Adventures through the ages
1920s: First women-only traverse of the Cuillin Ridge
After a first attempt in 1927, Lilian Bray returned with two companions – sisters ‘Biddy’ and ‘Trilby’ Wells - in 1928. They set off at 2:30am; the day became hot and cloudless with not a breath of wind. The rock was almost too hot to touch, and their mouths became so dry they could hardly speak. There was little conversation, save for agreeing the destination of the next climbing holiday: Holland. The three completed the traverse by 9am the following day: 30.5 hours in total.
“From the moment we set foot on the Island we were imbued with but one idea – the Cuillin ridge; we must traverse it in its entirety, it had never yet been accomplished alone by women.” — Lilian Bray, journal 3, 1927-28
Pictured: Emily ‘Trilby’ Wells at Cow and Calf Rocks, Ilkley, in 1981
1930s: Guideless in Switzerland
A journal article from 1938 captures the ethos of the Pinnacle Club perfectly:
“The title sounds grand, but this is a chronicle of very small beer. It is a record of Pinnacle parties of moderate accomplishment doing in the Alps very much what we do at home – that is, climbing mountains without professional or other assistance and, as at home, encountering very bad weather.’” — SR Harper
The cartoon by Marjorie Wood illustrates the ever-changing emotions of alpine climbing.
1950s: Sans Guide et Sans Garçon
Jo Scarr and Muriel Baldwin set off for the Alps in ‘Bambino,’ a Ford van, with food for a month, one small tent “held together by string and mildew”, a little money and a lot of plans. They were heading for the Dolomites, but stopped off to climb in Chamonix on the way. They did the first guideless female traverse of the Aiguilles Dorees, involving an unplanned bivouac. A packet of Spangles and four dried apricots saw them through a cold but beautiful night.
Pictured: Aiguilles Dorées. Credit: Eduard Spelterini/Wikimedia
1960s & 70s: Sea cliffs
There is always a special frisson of excitement climbing on sea cliffs. The Journals from the 1960s and 70s are full of reports of climbing on well-known and lesser-known cliffs: Bosigran, St Bees, Gogarth, Lundy.
Hilda Young casually wrote about Lundy: “Having exhausted our supply of known routes on the island, naturally we put up a few climbs. Probably the best line was the Crack on Gannet Rock.”
Pictured: Gwen Moffat on Diocese (VS), Chair Ladder, Cornwall, in 1967. Credit: JR Lees.
1980s: Lahaul Expedition
A group of eight Pinnacle Club members got together to organise an expedition to the Lahaul district of North India, which offered plenty of unclimbed peaks at a reasonable technical standard. Whilst they quickly decided that their original objective of peak ’20,537ft’ wasn’t on, they climbed 14 peaks between them between 16,000 and 19,000ft, all but one of them believed to be a first ascent.
Steph and Sheila had to return home before the end of the expedition, prior to the ascent of the most exciting and highest ascent, named ‘Steph’s Peak’ by the group. Below, Jean Drummond describes an unexpected bivvy on the descent from the first ascent Steph's peak.
Pictured: Team members at a camp during the expedition: Angela Soper standing; L-R sitting: Stella Adams. Jean Drummond, Steph Rowland, Sheila Crispin, Sheila Cormack, Jay Turner. Credit: Denise Wilson
> Read a newspaper article about the expedition (opens in a new window)
1990s: Old Man of Stoer
Climbing frequently doesn’t go according to plan. Journal 23 has a memorable account of six Pinnacle Club members’ attempt on a classic sea stack. On reaching a large ledge, the route didn’t look like the expected finish to the Hard Severe. Careful checking of the guidebook revealed they were off-route with a choice of E1 or E2 to finish. The team extricated themselves with a combination of climbing, prusiking up the rope and making use of rusty old pegs.
‘Silhouetted against the sky in an almost unbroken line, the tourists stared back at me, waiting. We hadn’t moved for ages. Surely they must have switched their camcorders off by now. I began to feel quite indignant towards the crowd on the clifftop. Having a personal fiasco recorded for posterity was embarrassment of the highest order.’ — Fred Reynolds, journal 23, 1994-96
Pictured: Louise Dickie on the Old Man of Stoer. Credit: Fred Reynolds
2000s: 57 Cocktails
Maureen Foster and Fred Reynolds shared a birthday on this trip, and set a challenge for the number of cocktails to be consumed. The climbing was superb, including all the classics at Lower Cove. But the cocktails were even more impressive.
“Among the maps and guidebooks on the table, there lurked The Ultimate Cocktail Manual and a bottle of Angostura’s Bitters. Clearly some kind of witchcraft was afoot. Cocktails are made through the careful blending of mutually enhancing ingredients to create something that is strong, exciting and greater than the sum of its parts. Certainly an appropriate metaphor for the Pinnacle Club that weekend.” — Judith Brown, journal 26, 2003-05
Pictured (L-R): Val Hennelly, Judith Brown, Helen Copeland, Fred Reynolds, Diana Proudfoot, Sue Williscroft, Maureen Foster, Dee Gaffney, Sally Macintyre, Pamela Holt. Credit: Fred Reynolds Collection
2010s: Morocco
Hazel Jones has a passion for climbing in Morocco, and has explored remote climbs with friends and Pinnacle Club members over several trips. The Samazar valley, reached via an unmade road, has a spectacular long climb, Dragon Ridge (Severe), perfect for getting used to the rock and environment – after that, Hazel and Ann Blandford “devoured the adventure of the mountain routes, with route-finding and loose rock still keeping us on our toes, but revelling in the views and the wildness.”
“‘The minimalist topo was little help, but by asking the million-dollar question, ‘if I could climb anywhere on this crag, where would it be?’ we eventually identified a clean rib and impressive crack line.” — Hazel Jones, journal 29, 2012-14
Pictured (l-r): Jan Rickman, Abi Chard, Hazel Jones, Sue Hodgkinson
Audio stories
Milena von und zur Mühlen. Credit: Jessie Leong.
Annabelle Barker in Shimshal Pass, Pakistan.
Sally Westmacott
Stella Adams on Rainbow Buttress, Morocco, in 2016. Credit: John Adams.
Jean Drummond and Denise Wilson, Alps Porton Via Ferrata, Dolomites.
Chris Watkins in Upernavik, NW Greenland, 2019. Credit: Shirley Potts.