Her Denali Solo: A Woman Alone on North America's Highest Peak

In 1990, when only fifty of the thousand annual attempts to climb Denali were made by women, Norma Jean Bowers summited without assistance. As a solo climber, she could not rope to others for safety along the deeply crevassed Kahiltna Glacier. She could not accept help with keeping her tent from collapsing, shredding, or blowing away during multi-day storms. She could not clip into fixed ropes that others used on the steepest sections of the West Buttress route. Worst of all, she had no one...