Thirty Below : The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All-Women's Ascent of Denali

The gripping story of a group of female adventurers and their treacherous pioneering ascent of Denali in 1970

Cassidy Randall draws on extensive archival research and original interviews to tell an engrossing, edge-of-the-seat adventure story about a forgotten group of climbers who had the audacity to believe that women could walk alone in extraordinary and treacherous heights.

Grace Hoeman dreamed of standing on top of Denali. The tallest peak in North America, the fierce polar mountain loomed large in many climbers’ imaginations, and Grace, a doctor in Alaska, had come close to the top, only to be turned back by altitude sickness and a storm that took the lives of seven fellow climbers in one remorseless blow.

Other expeditions denied her a place because of her gender, and when a letter arrived from a climber in California named Arlene Blum, who’d also been barred from expeditions—unless she stayed in base camp and cooked for the men, Grace got a defiant idea: she would organize and lead the first-ever all-female ascent of the frozen Alaskan peak.

Everyone told the “Denali Damsels,” as the team called themselves, that it couldn’t be done: Women were incapable of climbing mountains on their own. Men had walked on the moon; women still had not stood on the highest points on Earth. But these six women were unwilling to be limited by sexists and misogynists. They pushed past barriers in society at large, the climbing world, and their own bodies.

And then, when disaster struck at the worst time on their expedition, they could either keep their wits and prove their mettle, or die and confirm the worst opinions of men.

“Thirty Below is fast paced, with incredible characters who make you appreciate how far mountaineering (and society in general) has progressed in the last fifty years and exciting all the way to the end. This is a gripping story that's worth telling, and Randall has done a great job in bringing it to life.”—Alex Honnold, professional climber and author of Alone on the Wall