Betsy Blunden: First Woman Mountain Guide in the World

Betsy Blunden was the first professional woman mountain guide in the world when she was employed at the Hermitage in late 1928, aged 18. She guided there for three seasons and went on to make other significant climbs, including the first 3,000m peak in New Zealand climbed by an all-women party, which she led. But Betsy’s life was about more than climbing. She was a pioneering farmer, a deer-shooter, a skier of considerable prowess, a builder and painter, a golfer, a skilful horsewoman, a gardener and, as Betsy Anderson, a high country farmer. Betsy wrote at some length about her life and she took and collected photographs. Graham Langton, mountaineering historian, has taken all that material and added to it through further research to create this insightful biography of a life in the twentieth century, the life of an enthusiastic and inspiring woman.