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Conjure up an image in your head of a mountaineer
cresting the peak of a mighty mountain covered in dirt
and full of grit, and you might be picturing
some kind of burly man.
But the truth is, one of the world's most
accomplished explorers and mountain climbers
was a woman mostly forgotten to history named Gertrude Benham.
In her life, she circumnavigated the planet
seven different times, climbed well over 300 mountains,
and even became the first European
to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Yet, not many people have heard of her.
From a very young age, Benham loved to climb.
As a little girl, she would spend her summers
taking trips to the Swiss Alps, where
she would roam the countryside and hike up
the picturesque peaks.
By 1903, Gertrude was 36 years old, single, and ready
to start exploring.
She took her small bit of savings
and left for the Canadian Rockies, which were newly
accessible to mountaineers.
She set her sights on one of the hardest climbs
in the area, Mount Fay, named for the famous American
explorer Charles Fay, who hadn't yet
actually been able to summit the mountain named after him.
So imagine his frustration when young Gertrude Benham managed
to reach the peak before him.
You see, both Fay and Benham left around the same time
to try and climb to the peak but took different routes.
Gertrude Benham made it all the way up, and Charles Fay failed.
With his proud ego thoroughly bruised
by an unknown British woman who climbed his mountain
before him, Fay decided to name another nearby mountain
after himself, only to find out that Benham had already
climbed it.
Ouch!
Gertrude went on to hike on foot all across Canada,
South America, Africa, India, the Himalayas, and New Zealand,
just to name a few.
She always traveled alone, hiring local guides
to help her cross challenging landscapes
and mile-high mountains.
She was a fearless explorer with an endless thirst
for adventure.
She loved nature and the outdoors
and always looked to be, as she put it, a very
quiet and harmless traveler.
Maybe Gertrude Benham's most impressive achievement
came in 1909 when she became the first European
to reach the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
This was no small feat.
For almost 50 years, Europe's most esteemed explorers
and mountaineers tried and failed
to conquer Kilimanjaro, considered
one of the most perilous climbs in the world.
But to Gertrude, just another world-class view
she wanted to see for herself.
As she made the way up the mountain with her guide,
a unit of German soldiers warned her to turn back,
but she pressed on even as she hiked
past skeletons of climbers who died trying the very same feat.
Finally, even her local guides turned back.
So what did Gertrude Benham do?
She just kept climbing and finished
the death-defying journey all on her own.
Wow!
Standing on that summit, Gertrude Benham
became the very first European and the first known woman
to scale the mighty Mount Kilimanjaro.
Even to this day, the great Gertrude Benham
remains a truly trailblazing explorer and mountaineer
who was too good at climbing to wait around for some old man
to finally figure out how to climb his mountain
and for that, she shall live in infamy.
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