Dorothy Pilley Richards [SEP] sex or gender
Dorothy Pilley Richards
Dorothy Pilley Richards (16 September 1894 in Camberwell, London – 24 September 1986 in Cambridge) was a prominent mountaineer. She began climbing in Wales and joined the Fell and Rock Climbing Club, later helping found The Pinnacle Club in 1921.
In the 1920s, she climbed extensively in the Alps, Britain, and North America after her marriage to educator, literary critic, and rhetorician Ivor Armstrong Richards.
In 1928, she made the celebrated first ascent of the north north west ridge of the
news of the fatal accident in Zermatt only two days later.
The first ascent of the north north west ridge - described as “one of the last great problems” of the Pennine Alps - was by Dorothy Pilley Richards and I. A. Richards with Joseph Georges and Antoine Georges on 20 July 1928. Dorothy Pilley Richards later wrote up the ascent in her mountaineering memoir, "Climbing Days" (1935).
The first ascent of the north face is attributed to K. Schneider and F. Singer on 26 and 27 August