Community Notebook > Our Community, Our News
Women Climbing the Walls
photo by Megan McQuade

When she was three, Bonnie Prudden would sneak outside her home in Mount Vernon in the middle of the night, shimmy down the tree outside her bedroom window and roam the streets wearing a nightgown. When she was sleepy, she’d climb back up the tree and fall into bed to sleep. Those late night escapades were a harbinger of a passion Prudden would develop in the Shawangunk Mountains 18 years later—rock climbing.

As a pioneer in the 1940s and 50s, Prudden, then in her 20s and 30s, climbed with a fabled group of early mountaineers: Hans Kraus, Ken Prestrud, Fritz Weissner, and her husband Richard Hirschland. After the group tackled ascents for the first time, they honored themselves by naming routes like “Bonnie’s Roof” and “Ken’s Crack.”

“It was such a wonderful time,” said Prudden during a phone interview in August from her home in Tuscon. “We’d have a campfire at the end of the day and Fritz would sing songs after supper. It was simple. In those days, we had lousy shoes, a rope, a few pitons, and a hammer.’’

She stopped climbing in her 40s to devote time to skiing and developing exercise regimens for schoolchildren. Today, at 88, she’s writing her autobiography which will most likely include a discussion on Myotherapy training, a well-known regimen she developed for removing muscle pain.

Prudden returns to the Gunks next month as the keynote speaker of the sixth annual gathering of Sheclimbs, Inc., to be held in New Paltz and Gardiner October 3-6. The four-day event which is open to Sheclimbs members only, includes climbing clinics, a writing workshop, yoga and stretch classes, and a group dinner. At her slide show presentation October 5 at 8pm at the Tuthilltown Gristmill in Gardiner, Prudden will discuss climbing in the Gunks in the 40s and her experiences as a woman climber; the presentation is open to the public.

Sheclimbs, a grassroots, non-profit volunteer group with 300 members in 18 chapters nationwide, started in 1995 in Portland, Oregon when a group of women got together to climb. Many had been looking for women climbing partners and didn’t know how to connect. Soon the 25 original women started a community wherein women were seeking women to climb with across the country. She climbs is for women who have either just taken up climbing or have 20 years under their belt. It’s not a guiding service; instead, members mentor others and learn together.

Sheclimbs chooses top-notch climbing venues across the country to hold its annual gathering to promote the sport so picking the Gunks for this year’s setting was a natural, according to Sheclimbs president Carolyn McHale.

Previous meetings have been held in Smith Rocks, Oregon; City of Rocks, Idaho; Boulder, Colorado; New River Gorge, West Virginia and Squamish, in British Columbia. Like many women, Alice Velky of Salt Point started climbing with a male partner, but after a breakup, sought out female partners on the Sheclimbs Web site (www.sheclimbs.org).
“When you climb with guys, they tend to take over,”’ said Velky, Gunks Chapter Coordinator and organizer for this year’s annual gathering. “Sheclimbs is all about supporting women’s self-reliance on the rock .’’
Sheclimbs members, many of whom are wives and mothers, climb together, organize events like slide shows, publish the Web site and a monthly newsletter and do community events like cliff cleanups.
And Sheclimbs has sponsored and organized women’s climbing competitions and have provided scholarship money to help send girls on the US Youth Climbing Team to the 1996 World Youth Climbing Championships in Moscow, Russia.

The misconception of rock climbing is that it’s all about arm strength, when flexibility and coordination are key, many veterans say. “We think women are better climbers,” said Jon Ross, who runs High Angle Adventures guide service in the Gunks. “It’s more about grace and technique than about power. Women more often look to their footwork and balance.”

Many in the climbing community credit Lynn Hill with opening doors for women and bringing media attention to the sport. In 1992, Hill became the first person—male or female—to complete a free ascent of “The Nose” route on Yosemite’s famous El Capitan. That means she climbed with a rope and protection but never slipped to use them. A solo ascent uses no rope. And in the Gunks, Hill is also recognized with some first ascents such as the difficult (5.12) route she named “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” in 1987.

Hill visited New Paltz in May during a book tour promoting Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World. “Lynn, at five (foot) one and change, proved that neither sex nor height made a difference in the sport,’’ said Ross, 59. And these days companies that sell climbing equipment are marketing items like harnesses and shoes specifically for women, according to Jeremy Rice, a professional climber for 10 years who works at Rock & Snow in New Paltz.

“For a long time, equipment was unisex or catered to men,” he said. “In the last two to three years especially, I’ve seen companies doing a bigger marketing push towards women.”

Men and women climbers alike, say climbing is about pushing both their physical and mental limits. “It scared the heck out of me at first,” said Velky who started climbing five years ago. “I would look up at the rock, then I would do it. It was an incredible feeling. It expanded my sense of what I can do.”

Alex Baer, of Wallkill, a veteran climber and Sheclimbs member, started climbing before she was 10 learning from her father and grandfather who climbed routes in Europe.

“This community is fantastic,” she said. “I’ve climbed and lived in many places and it’s a very supportive community especially supportive of women climbing.” Whether you’re male or female, you have to have a respect for the sport, its origins and its risks. With indoor climbing gyms popping up all over the country, rock climbing has come to a town near you. Many people who wouldn’t have considered the sport their first climbing experience is now in a gym.

“Learning in the gym can be wonderful and it’s a great way to stay in shape, but ultimately your experience will be in the outdoors, being on real rock,” Baer said.

Out on the real rock, Prudden had the honor of exploring some of the routes for the first time. Check out Dick Williams’ The Gunks Select guidebook for route explanations and you’ll get a kick out of how Prudden (and her husband), named the climb called “Boston” in 1950.
And at 88, Prudden shows no signs of slowing down. Her home in Tuscon is equipped a balance beam, a stair machine and other exercise equipment. She spends an hour a day in the pool, too.
“If I gave into old age, I’d be sitting in a chair,” she said.

—Jennifer O’Reilly