Women's place on the heights

Women found themselves at the centre of Australian climbing culture throughout the 1930s with Queensland hosting the first and most extensive mass climbing movement in the country. The Blue Mountains was the only other place in Australia where some climbing activity was underway but the unique and extraordinary movement in Queensland saw large numbers of men and women, in roughly equal proportions, regularly scaling the heights in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales. Bert Salmon and his cohort of climbers had formed an informal club in 1926—the first known climbing group in Australia. Women’s prowess on the rock was obvious and acknowledged in newspaper and magazine articles of the day. With women regularly making the most difficult ascents in southeast Queensland, they began to seek new horizons and in January 1934, 16 Queenslanders travelled to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains on a ‘rock-climbing holiday’. They met with the doyen of New South Wales climbing, Eric Dark, and he showed them his favourite climbing locations, including the Three Sisters, the Boar’s Head at Narrow Neck, and Orphan Rock. Early one Sunday morning, with 300 people watching from a nearby lookout, Salmon and 21 year old Muriel Patten climbed the first of the Three Sisters. The Katoomba Daily was impressed:

Miss Muriel Patten, a petite and daring Brisbane girl, claims a record: that she is the only woman to scale the first of the Three Sisters. One section of this climb is extremely difficult and hazardous: particularly for a lady…The Dr [Dark] informs us that, to his knowledge, no lady has previously scaled the first of the Three Sisters although there are several instances of ladies attaining the summit of the second and third members of the group…To make the job complete, Messrs Salmon, Fraser and Rogers, (accompanied by Sid Marsh, Katoomba) scaled each of the Sisters and, to lend a touch of novelty, Mr Fraser
played Scottish airs on the bagpipes. A big crowd was present at Echo Point and watched intently the progress of the daring climbers—Miss Patten in particular.

The success of Muriel Patten on the Three Sisters and the publicity it received in Brisbane and Sydney probably spurred her good friend, Jean Easton, into action. Shortly after dawn on the 11 March that year, she made the second female ascent of the 1st Sister, climbing with two of the Blue Mountaineers but this time, using a rope. Brisbane’s Courier-Mail praised her accomplishment this time:

Another Brisbane girl has made mountaineering history. Miss Jean Easton, of the Department of Agriculture and Stock, is the second woman to scale the perilous Katoomba crag known as the first of the Three Sisters. Less than two months ago Miss Muriel Patten while on a holiday visit to Katoomba achieved the honour of being the first woman to perform the feat. Miss Easton who is a fellow employee of Miss Patten at the Department of Agriculture, is also an enthusiastic mountain climber, and has been a member of parties that have scaled most of the difficult peaks in Southern Queensland. She has the reputation of being one of the best lady mountaineers in the State.

And Jean Easton’s reason for climbing? She replied succintly: ‘There is a thrill in seeing a view with which few other people have had the opportunity of becoming acquainted.’

Picture: A typical climbing group on Tibrogargan in 1935, Nancy Hodge collection.