About B-7 and 'wimmin'

G. GEORGE OSTROM / For the Hungry Horse News

Three young women recently climbed the towering B-7 Pillar on Glacier Park's Ptarmigan Wall. They are Linda Soper, Alice Ford, and Denise Davies. How dare they?

In my generation during the '30s and '40s, "a woman's place was in the home." With that philosophy were beliefs women were not physically capable of "manly things' such as being cops, driving logging trucks or climbing precipitous mountains. There was one dominating compensation factor among good men. They placed "women on a pedestal."

Women were honored and respected for their difficult career of raising children, maintaining the home, and providing a vital cohesive factor, which held families together.

I admit that was the way I though, because that is the way things were. All this was changed by World War II and Women's Lib.

Differences haven't been easy to accept for us macho males, and ironically … tough for the women. All freedoms have a price.

Maybe this recent female thing bothers me because years ago I made an attempt at climbing B-7 from the Iceberg Notch on the Continental Divide but rapidly found an excuse to put it off, probably because it scared the hell out of me.

In the 2010 "Going to the Sun" magazine published by the Glacier Mountaineering Society and edited by Brian Kennedy, there are insights into the majestic B-7 Pillar. Brian is a noted mountaineer and among the smaller number of people who have reached the top. He may actually have abetted those girls in making it up there; however I can forgive him because Brian is barely over 30.

He did great detective work in finding how B-7 was first climbed by two young males employed at the Park in 1967, then locating them using "the power of the Web." He found Keith Hollister living in Maple Grove, Minnesota and Phil Shinn in Lewiston, Idaho. Those two friends had long ago lost track of each other so Brian was able to get them back together along with getting their story of an unforgettable first ascent made 43 years ago. It was helpful to learn the first ascent wasn't by girls.

Whatta ya know? Just remembered something. In the early '80s the Over the Hill Gang was climbing Mount Henry and just above the 8,500-foot level a rock I grabbed to pull myself up a ledge broke off. More came down and pinned me to the ground. That's when Bobbie Gilmore came to the rescue by getting a weighty slab off my legs and back on my feet. Bobbie is not a boy.

Then there was the time five us were making a third attempt to scale the eastern face of Never Laughs Mountain. Once again reached a Class V pitch that had stopped us below the summit before. Jack Fletcher and Ted Rugland figured we could make it if we could just get onto a ledge only 15 feet up. Another member took my rope and went up a crevice like a spider, anchored the rope and tossed it down. We made the top, thanks to my daughter Heidi.

Had to really change my attitude when agreeing to let Heidi get a pilot's license in high school then volunteer with first women's groups going through the U.S. Army's Infantry training designed for men. It was tough accepting adult daughter Wendy sneaking out to Lost Prairie to see what it was like jumping out of airplanes.

Yes! We old guys are going to be all right but there will always be feminine stuff to perplex us. For example! One time a group of Over the Hillers hiked to Avalanche Lake then climbed along the waterfalls in cliffs southwest of the lake. Decided to find a way up the ridge north of the Little Matterhorn then scramble to the summit of Mount Brown.

My group got separated from five others so slid, fell and crawled back down to the cars at Avalanche. Two hours later the five others got down telling of unbelievable hardship involving rockslides, crevasses and brush over their heads laced with downed logs. The three males had torn clothes, scratched arms and legs and looked like they'd been dragged backwards through a jagged knothole. Their hiking companions Bobbie Gilmore and Sandi Everett were weary but otherwise unscratched and appeared not to have been off the trail.

If women are bent on doing all the wild tough men things, it seems to me the least they could do is not make it look … easy.

G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist.