17 February: Alison Hargreaves

British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves was born on this date in 1962. 10 things you might not know about her:

1. She was born and grew up in Derbyshire, England. Her mother was a teacher and her father a scientific officer. Both her parents were mathematicians. Alison was the middle child of three.

2. She was just 5′2″ tall.

3. Her parents were avid hill walkers, so from the age of six, she was walking with them.

4. At 13, she took up rock climbing and began seeking out rock faces to climb all over England.

5. At 16, she got a job in a climbing shop, owned by Jim Ballard, who was almost twice her age. She left home to live with him at 18. Her parents were disappointed and never got along with him. The couple married in 1988 and moved to Spean Bridge, in the Scottish Highlands in order to be closer to the Mountains.

6. Jim, however, was violent and controlling. In 1987 she wrote in her diary, 'JB beat me up again, thumped and kicked me in snow.'

7. Finding the money to finance Alison’s passion wasn’t easy. In 1933, she and Jim sold their house and spent some time travelling in Switzerland and living in an old Land Rover.

8. She was the first climber to climb all the six great North Faces of the Alps in one season. When she climbed the Eiger, she was six months pregnant. She had originally wanted to climb in Alaska, but although her doctor told her the medical risks of climbing while pregnant were minimal, making such a huge expedition might be frowned upon. Her son, Tom, also became a climber. He died in 2019 while ascending Nanga Parbat.

9. Hargreaves failed in her first attempt to climb Everest. The threat of frostbite meant she had to turn back just 1,500 feet from the summit. “I was feeling great, but I wasn't prepared to lose any digits over it,"she said. On May 13, 1995, Hargreaves finally became the first woman, and only the second human being in history, to reach the 29,028-foot summit of Mount Everest solo without supplemental Oxygen.

10. A few months later, she reached the summit of K2, again without supplemental oxygen. Sadly though, she and the rest of her party perished in a terrible storm on their way back down. Hargreaves was 33 years old.