Lucy Walker on the Matterhorn

Lucy Walker · 1871 CE · Earth

Lucy Walker on the Matterhorn — Lucy Walker · 1871 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Be the first woman on the summit of the Matterhorn, ahead of Meta Brevoort.

Historical context

Six years after the disaster the Matterhorn had been climbed eighteen times, all by men. Lucy Walker of Liverpool had been climbing with her father and the Oberland guide Melchior Anderegg since 1858, always in a white print dress, and had collected a dozen first female ascents without much notice. In July 1871 word came that the American Meta Brevoort meant to be the first woman on the Matterhorn; the Walkers changed their plans and went up first, and Punch printed verses about it.

The voyage, step by step

  1. News of Miss Brevoort

    19 July 1871

    In July 1871 Melchior Anderegg learns that the American Meta Brevoort is planning an expedition to climb the Matterhorn. Lucy Walker's party hastily rearranges its plans and makes for Zermatt.

  2. The Walker party sets out

    20 July 1871

    On 20 July 1871 the party leaves Zermatt for the Hörnli: Lucy Walker, her father Frank, sixty-five years old and already ill, their friend Frederick Gardiner, Melchior Anderegg and the other guides. They go up past the Schwarzsee by the route of 1865.

  3. A night on the ridge

    20 July 1871

    The ascent takes two days, 20 and 21 July, with a night high on the Hörnli ridge, where there was still no hut. Lucy Walker is said to have kept herself going on the great climbs on sponge cake and champagne.

  4. The first woman on the Matterhorn

    21 July 1871

    On 21 July 1871 Lucy Walker stands on the summit of the Matterhorn, in her white print dress, in the nineteenth ascent of the mountain and the first by a woman. Her father, at sixty-five, stands beside her on what proves to be his last great ascent.

  5. Miss Brevoort arrives

    July 1871

    Days later Meta Brevoort reaches Zermatt with her nephew W. A. B. Coolidge, the Grindelwald guide Christian Almer and the dog Tschingel, to find the first female ascent already taken. She makes do with the first traverse of the Matterhorn by a woman, from Zermatt over the top to Breuil.

  6. A Climbing Girl

    26 August 1871

    On 26 August 1871 Punch prints A Climbing Girl: a lady has clomb to the Matterhorn's summit, which almost like a monument points to the sky. No glacier can baffle, no precipice balk her, no peak rise above her, however sublime; give three times three cheers for intrepid Miss Walker.

Outcome

The summit on 21 July 1871 with her father, Frederick Gardiner, Melchior Anderegg and the other guides, the nineteenth ascent of the mountain; Brevoort arrived days later and made do with the first traverse to Breuil.

Lucy Walker

A Liverpool merchant's daughter who climbed in a white print dress for fifty years with the guide Melchior Anderegg and, on 21 July 1871, became the first woman on the summit of the Matterhorn.

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Sources

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