Arlene Blum | |
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![]() Arlene Blum at a 1977 fundraiser in Berkeley, CA, for her 1978 climbing expedition | |
Born | Davenport, Iowa, US | March 1, 1945
Education | Reed College, BA University of California, Berkeley, PhD |
Occupation(s) | Mountaineer, writer, Environmental health scientist |
Known for | Leading first American and also all-woman ascent of Annapurna Environmental health research |
Notable work | Annapurna: A Woman's Place Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life |
Children | 1 |
Website | http://www.arleneblum.com |
Arlene Blum (born March 1, 1945 [1] ) is an American mountaineer, writer, and environmental health scientist. She is best known for leading the first successful American ascent of Annapurna (I), a climb that was also an all-woman ascent. She led the first all-woman ascent of Denali ("Denali Damsels" expedition), and was the first American woman to attempt Mount Everest. [2] She is Executive Director of the Green Science Policy Institution. [3]
Blum was born in Davenport, Iowa, and raised from the age of five on in Chicago by her Orthodox Jewish mother and grandparents. [1] In the early 1960s, she attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Her first climb was in Washington, where she failed to reach the summit of Mount Adams. However, she persevered, climbing throughout her college days. She was rejected from an Afghanistan expedition in 1969, with its leader writing to her, "One woman and nine men would seem to me to be unpleasant high on the open ice, not only in excretory situations but in the easy masculine companionship which is so vital a part of the joy of an expedition." [4] In 1970, she requested to join a high altitude expedition, but was told that she was welcome to come as far as the base camp to "help with the cooking." [4] However, she was able to go climbing as part of her research for her senior thesis, which was on the topic of volcanic gases on Oregon's Mount Hood. Blum was graduated from Reed in 1966 and attended MIT and UC Berkeley, where she earned a PhD in biophysical chemistry in 1971. After graduate school, Blum embarked on what she called the "endless winter" – spending more than a year climbing peaks all over the world. [5]
Blum was part of the first all-woman team to ascend Alaska's Denali in 1970. She was deputy leader for the ascent. [6] She participated in a 1976 expedition up Mount Everest as part of the American Bicentennial Everest Expedition, but did not reach the summit. In 1978, she organized a team of eleven women to climb the tenth highest mountain in the world, Annapurna (I) in Nepal which, until then, had been climbed by only eight people (all men). It was called American Women's Himalayan Expeditions – Annapurna. They raised money for the trip in part by selling T-shirts with the slogan "A woman's place is on top". The first summit team, comprising Vera Komarkova and Irene Miller (now Beardsley) and Sherpas Mingma Tsering and Chewang Ringjing, reached the top at 3:30 p.m. on October 15, 1978. The second summit team, Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz and Vera Watson, died during this climb. After the event, Blum wrote a book about her experience on Annapurna, called Annapurna: A Woman's Place. [7]
She led the first expedition to climb Bhrigupanth in the Indian Himalayas, leading a team of Indian and American women. She then attempted what she called the "Great Himalayan Traverse", a two-thousand-mile journey across the treacherous but beautiful peaks of the Himalayas from Bhutan to India. She crossed the Alps from Yugoslavia to France, bearing her baby Annalise on her back in a backpack. [8]
As a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, in the late 1970s, Blum's research contributed to the regulation of two cancer-causing chemicals used as flame retardants on children's sleepwear. [9] Blum taught at Stanford University, Wellesley College, and the University of California, Berkeley. [10]
After a long hiatus, Blum returned to science and policy work in 2006—when her daughter started college—and her memoir Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life ( ISBN 0156031167) was published. She discovered that the same Tris her research had helped remove from children's pajamas was back in California couches and baby products. [11]
In 2007 Blum co-founded the Green Science Policy Institute (GSP) [12] with the goal of bringing scientific research results into policy decisions to protect human health and the environment from toxic chemicals. As executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, [13] Blum and her team have led several successful national and international campaigns against the use of toxic chemicals, particularly halogenated flame retardants. [14]
Blum has published articles about science policy in The New York Times , Science magazine, [15] Los Angeles Times , [16] and The Huffington Post . [17]
Her first book, Annapurna: A Woman's Place was included in Fortune Magazine's 2005 list of "The 75 Smartest Business Books We Know" and chosen by National Geographic Adventure Magazine as one of the 100 top adventure books of all time. Her award-winning memoir, Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life tells the story of how Blum realized improbable dreams among the world's highest mountains, in the chemistry laboratory, and in public policy. [19] Both books show the hardships faced by women in male-dominated fields. [20] [21]
Blum's awards include a Purpose Prize [22] to those over 60 who are solving society's greatest problems, National Women's History Project selection as one of "100 Women Taking the Lead to Save Our Planet" [23] and a Gold Medal from the Society of Woman Geographers, [24] an honor previously given to only eight other women including Amelia Earhart, Margaret Mead, and Mary Leakey. Breaking Trail received an Honorable Mention from the National Outdoor Book Award in 2005. [25]
Arlene Blum is the founder of the annual Berkeley Himalayan Fair and the Burma Village Assistance Project. She serves on the boards of the Society for the Preservation of Afghan Archeology; ISET, an organization dedicated to solving climate, water and disaster problems in South Asia; and the advisory boards for Project REED which builds libraries in Asia, Environmental Building News, and the Plastic Pollution Coalition. [26]
Blum was the winner of the Sierra Club's Francis P. Farquhar Mountaineering Award for 1982. [27]
On April 7, 2012, the American Alpine Club inducted Blum into its Hall of Mountaineering Excellence at an award ceremony in Golden, Colorado. [28]
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Blum lives and works in Berkeley, California. She has a daughter, Annalise Blum, a 2010 graduate of Stanford University in environmental engineering. In 2017 Annalise earned a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at Tufts University. [31] In March, 2023, Annalise was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science in the U.S. Department of the Interior. [32]
Annapurna is a mountain situated in the Annapurna mountain range of Gandaki Province, north-central Nepal. It is the 10th highest mountain in the world at 8,091 metres (26,545 ft) above sea level and is well known for the difficulty and danger involved in its ascent.
Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190 m) above sea level. It is the tallest mountain in the world from base-to-peak on land, measuring 18,000 ft (5,500 m), With a topographic prominence of 20,194 feet (6,155 m) and a topographic isolation of 4,621.1 miles (7,436.9 km), Denali is the third most prominent and third-most isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua. Located in the Alaska Range in the interior of the U.S. state of Alaska, Denali is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.
Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev was a Soviet and Kazakh mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above 8,000 m (26,247 ft)—without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8,000 m.
Junko Tabei was a Japanese mountaineer, author, and teacher. She was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest and first woman to ascend the Seven Summits, climbing the highest peak on every continent.
Edurne Pasaban Lizarribar is a Basque Spanish mountaineer. On May 17, 2010, she became the first woman to climb all 14 of the eight-thousanders – and the 21st person to do so. Her first 8,000 peak had been achieved 9 years earlier, on May 23, 2001, when she reached the summit of Mount Everest. She has also completed the seven summits.
Kinga Baranowska is a Polish mountaineer. She made ascents of nine eight-thousanders and is the first Polish woman to have climbed Dhaulagiri, Manaslu and Kangchenjunga. She has also climbed the seven summits.
Oh Eun-sun is a South Korean mountaineer. She was the first Korean woman to climb the Seven Summits. On April 27, 2010, she reached the summit of Annapurna; upon doing so, she claimed to have climbed all fourteen eight-thousanders, which would have made her the first woman to achieve this feat. However, her claim to have ascended Kangchenjunga was disputed by multiple experts. Oh later admitted that she had stopped a few hundred meters before the summit of Kangchenjunga, and so the Korean Alpine Federation ruled that she had not summited. The mountaineering site ExplorersWeb officially considers the Basque Edurne Pasaban as the first woman to have successfully climbed all fourteen peaks.
Krushnaa Patil is an Indian climber. In 2009, at the age of 19, she became the youngest Indian woman to successfully ascent Mount Everest, earth's highest mountain.
Vera Komarkova was a prominent Czech-American mountaineer and botanist. Credited as a pioneer of women's mountaineering, she was the first woman to summit Annapurna and Cho Oyu.
Susan D. Shaw was an American environmental health scientist, marine toxicologist, explorer, ocean conservationist, and author. A Doctor of Public Health, she was a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the School of Public Health at the State University of New York at Albany, and Founder/President of the Shaw Institute, a nonprofit scientific institution with a mission to improve human and ecological health through innovative science and strategic partnerships. Shaw is globally recognized for pioneering high-impact environmental research on ocean pollution, climate change, oil spills, and plastics that has fueled public policy over three decades. In 1983, with landscape photographer Ansel Adams, she published Overexposure, the first book to document the health hazards of photographic chemicals. Shaw is credited as the first scientist to show that brominated flame retardant chemicals used in consumer products have contaminated marine mammals and commercially important fish stocks in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. She became the first scientist to dive into the Gulf of Mexico oil slick following the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion to investigate the impacts of chemical dispersants used in response to the spill.
The American Women's Himalayan Expedition was a 1978 expedition to Annapurna which placed the first two women, and first Americans, on its summit. The expedition was led by Arlene Blum and consisted of thirteen women, and six sherpas. On October 15, the first summit team, composed of Vera Komarkova, Irene Beardsley, Mingma Tshering Sherpa and Chewang Ringjin Sherpa summitted Annapurna via the Dutch Route. The second summit team, Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz and Vera Watson, died during the climb.
Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz was a British mountaineer, painter, and lithography lecturer. She made the first ascent of Gasherbrum III, at the time the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz died along with her climbing partner, Vera Watson, during an attempt on Annapurna I Central.
Irene Beardsley is an American mountaineer, and along with Vera Komarkova, the first woman to climb Annapurna, the tenth highest mountain in the world.
Vera Watson was an American computer programmer, mountaineer and rock climber who made the first woman's solo climb of Acongagua, the highest mountain in the Americas. She also made several first ascents in the Kenai Mountains in Alaska. She was a member of the successful first all-women team to climb Annapurna, but was killed along with her partner Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz while preparing to attempt the unclimbed central summit of the mountain.
Rosemary Saal is an American mountaineer who at age 19 was a member of the first all African American climbing team to climb Denali in 2013. At age 25 she was the technical co-leaders for the first all-Black U.S. expedition team to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, in 2018.
Carina Dayondon is a Filipina mountaineer, adventurer, and Philippine Coast Guard officer who was the first Filipina to reach the Seven Summits, the seven tallest mountains in every continent in the world, and the second Filipina to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
SheikhaAsma Al Thani is a Qatari mountaineer who is the first Qatari woman to summit Mount Everest, Lhotse, and Manaslu, K2 as well as the first Qatari female to climb Ama Dablam. She is also the first Qatari person to ski to the North Pole. On her ascent of Manaslu, she became the first Arab person to summit an eight-thousander without oxygen. She climbed Lhotse for the second time in May 2024, without the use of supplemental oxygen, becoming the first Arab to climb two 8000er without supplemental oxygen. She is Director of Marketing and Communications for the Qatar Olympic Committee. She is also a member of the ruling family of Qatar.
Marija "Mariča" Sabolek Frantar (1956-1991), was a Slovenian alpinist who was one of Slovenia's most successful mountaineers, and the second Slovene woman to summit an eight-thousander. In 1990, she received the Stanko Bloudek award, Slovenia's highest state award for sport for her achievements in mountaineering.
Ingrid M. Baeyens is a Belgian mountaineer and physical therapist. She became the first woman to summit the South Face of Annapurna in 1991, and the first Belgian woman to summit Mount Everest in 1992.
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