This is part of a weekly series for Women's History Month that tells the behind-the-scenes stories of trailblazing women at National Geographic. Read more profiles in the March 2020 issue.
Barbara Washburn’s life atop the world’s highest peaks began with a job tip from her mail carrier in 1939. The position he recommended—as a secretary for Bradford Washburn, the director of the New England Museum of Natural History—did not appeal to her. “I don’t want to work in that stuffy old museum,” she recalled thinking, “and I certainly wouldn’t want to work for a crazy mountain climber.”
A year later, the young woman who’d never been camping was standing atop 10,151-foot Mount Bertha in Alaska. She had married that mountain climber. After a month of travel, with teams of dogs and backpack gear, the party was slowed by storms and a steep route taken in order to avoid avalanches. In a
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