The highest point and a volcano or two
An interview with Elizabeth White
Elizabeth White has had a multi-faceted life as a mountaineer, international development professional, runner, linguist, and wife and mother of three. She lived, worked, and did research in Pakistan for nine years and in Indonesia for five. Between traveling for work and climbing mountains, she has been to sixty countries. She has written a memoir about seeking the highest points in these places and what happened to her and her family in between them. The following combines excerpts from her memoir with interview questions.
Photographs from the personal collection of Elizabeth White
Wife, mother, mountaineer, runner, scholar, feminist, what was I? I had successes and failures in all categories as I traversed the world and the years. From New York to New Guinea, from Alaska to Patagonia, and 50 countries in between, I pursued knowledge and adventure. I tried to minimize damage to the world and make some positive impacts as I went.
Much of my international research, work, and living experience has been in Pakistan and Indonesia, two large Muslim majority nations. My academic and professional interest has focused on social and political development in Muslim societies. An American woman, educated in American colleges and universities, I am a sympathetic observer of custom and history. I appreciate the strengths and faults of my own society and those I have studied.
“Going to the mountains is going home.”—John Muir
During half a century with my husband, Gene, mountains were the focus of our personal travel. We shared a love of high places and open vistas and the challenge of reaching summits. In 1959 I told my Smith classmates in Geneva I planned to spend the summer travelling around Europe on a Vespa with Gene and climbing mountains. They asked, “Why aren’t you visiting the great museums and cathedrals of Europe? When will you have a chance to visit them again?” I replied, “The great mountains of Europe are unique and when might I have a chance to visit them again?” The Alps were sunny and welcoming that summer, though my memories of Scotland and Wales are of rain and the foggy summits of Ben Nevis and Snowdon. We must have stopped our Vespa in some towns but I do not remember which. I do recall Gaston’s Alpine Books in London was an essential stop for Gene.
When we circled the Mediterranean, in 1961, we sought the highest point in each country. Of course, we visited the Parthenon in Greece, but not until after standing on the summit of Mount Olympus. We sped through Turkey, frustrated that we could not get permission to climb Mount Ararat. In East Africa we observed the exotic animals and flora from the bus on our way to the mountains. Only after climbing Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya did we spend a day touring a game park.
In the western hemisphere, our first trip to Peru in 1969 was spent acclimatizing on the slopes of mount Chinchey and then climbing Huascaran, the highest point in the country. We had no time for Machu Pichu. On our second trip to Peru eight years later, we saved three days for Cuzco and Machu Pichu. Our ten-day visit to Mexico began with ascents of Nevado de Toluca, La Malinche and Ixtaccihuatl. Then, finally, a day of sightseeing in Mexico City and the pyramids at Teotihuacan. The goal of our trip to Ecuador was to climb Chimborazo and Cotopax; we had no time for the Galapagos. In Patagonia, there were no monuments to distract us from hiking in the spectacular mountain scenery every day.
Tell us what it was like traveling with your children. Do you think they have a different sense of the world as a result of their travels?
Gene and I visited mosques and monuments, churches, and museums—also zoos and aquariums for the children—but our goals continued to be the mountains. We spent a couple of days in Rome and Florence in 1966, but our most memorable times in Italy were skiing and climbing in the 1960s and hiking in the Dolomites in 2003. Travelling home from Indonesia in 1978 with our three children, we spent three weeks in Chamonix on the trails and peaks. I did take the children to Paris for three days of art and culture.
In Nepal and India in 1977, we took our children trekking in Nepal for two weeks, setting aside 3 days in Delhi for monuments and temples and a day for the fort and Taj Mahal in Agra. During our many years in Pakistan, we spent our holidays in nearest mountains, though we did manage to visit the ancient site of Mohenjo-Daro and some Buddhist and Mogul monuments. In Indonesia also, our holidays always included the ascent of a volcano or two as well as the attractive beaches.
My philosophy is that children are portable when small, and capable when ambulatory. I enjoyed traveling with my children and in recent years with grandchildren. They bring a different perspective to travel. Because of them, zoos have taken precedence over art museums in Asia and Europe. My children were an invitation to communication with other people, whether with neighborhood mothers of small children in the Punjab, or fellow hikers in Nepal or the Alps. Sometimes the kids suffered from excessive attention, as when being photographed by Japanese tourists on a beach in Bali, surrounded by curious Indians in Madras, or having their blond hair touched and cheeks pinched in the market in Sulawesi. They had the experience of being the minority: three blonds in a continent of dark-haired people. That definitely gave them a different sense of the world and of their place in it. As adults, they have traveled back to Asia several times.
Were there times when you were afraid or had fearful experiences that made you regret the decisions you had made?
At the start of every expedition, I had a pang of guilt for going away from the children. Thinking of Greg's birthday when on Makalu, for instance. It was there in 1980, while I was leading four reluctant Nepali staff to rescue our unconscious teammate, that my right leg, up to the hip, sank into a crevasse on the glacier. We were about 20,000 feet high. Fortunately, I had just tied all of us on a rope, so Pasang, our lead Sherpa, could drag me back before I fell in further. At that moment, I regretted that I had not insisted the strong American climbers on another expedition join me in the rescue. I guess I was so shocked that they did not immediately offer to help that I accepted their offer of a radio and some flag poles to use for a stretcher.
What are some of the longest-lasting or most memorable friendships you've made?
Mark Bostwick was a year behind me at East Denver High, but he was more experienced in mountaineering when I started climbing with the Colorado Mountain Club in 1955. He has remained a friend throughout my life. He joined Gene and me on many climbing trips in Colorado and to Canada, Peru and Ecuador. We knew and liked his first and second wives. A conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, he moved to Vancouver, but visited us frequently, including joining us when climbing Long's Peak in Colorado 50 years after Gene had first climbed it. He flew from Canada to attend Gene's memorial in 2008.
Eliot and Natalie Goss were neighbors we met in 1968 in Denver. They have three sons a little older than my children, so we shared many family vacations and weekends in the mountains. They now live in Jackson, Wyoming, so when I go to my house in Teton County, Idaho, we have a chance to visit. Their youngest son is still one of the best friends of my younger son. We share the triumphs and tribulations of our children and grandchildren.
Arlene Blum, climber, chemist, and campaigner for a healthier climate. I met Arlene around 1970. I was the second American woman to climb Huascaran (Peru, 22,204 feet) so Arlene invited me to join her all-women expedition to Denali. I couldn't join the "Denali Damsels" because I was pregnant. Over the years we have skied and hiked together frequently. I helped with fund-raising for the women's expedition to Annapurna, but decided not to participate as a climber. We are both members of the Society of Woman Geographers and the American Alpine Club and attend those meetings together. I hosted mailing parties for the Green Policy Institute, which she created to change policies regulating toxic chemicals in furniture, clothing, cosmetics, and baby accessories. I have watched in awe as she has challenged the global chemical industry.
The following excerpt is from a chapter on Elizabeth’s assignment to Peshawar, a Pakistani city close to the Afghanistan border, after joining the Peace Corps.
Peshawar’s population was over 250,000. Like many cities in the former British Empire, it was divided into two distinct areas, the Cantonment, and the old City. The streets of the Cantonment, built by the British, were wide and straight, lined with tall trees. Some of the trees were mulberry. In the early summer, the fallen mulberries coated the roads with dark purple slime. Once my bike skidded on the mulberries and I fell. I was bruised and my clothes were dyed purple. Behind iron gates and spacious lawns were the State Guest House where Queen Elizabeth and Jackie Kennedy and other visiting heads of state had stayed. There were several schools, a market area, an English library, the Peshawar Club, the Anglican Church, the Christian cemetery, and the Governor’s residence. The military facilities included parade grounds, barracks for the soldiers and bungalows for the officers. There was also some housing for civil servants and an open food market. The cantonment gave one the impression of orderliness and planned development.
In contrast to the cantonment, Peshawar City was a maze of tiny streets, many impassable for automobiles. The city was surrounded by a massive wall, with a huge fort on the western edge to ward off attackers from the wilds of the Khyber Pass tribal areas on the Afghan border. Until the 1950’s, the gates of the Peshawar walls were closed at night. Enclosed by its wall, the city grew upward instead of outward. Buildings towered precariously five or six stories high without evidence of engineering plans. Many narrow streets were blocked by huge timbers supporting the upper floors of mud brick buildings.
The center of the old city was the Chowk Yadgar or Memorial Square. It was fascinating to watch the constant parade of people and animals there. At any time of day, legless beggars pushed themselves on little carts, colorfully robed holy men, water buffaloes, two-wheeled horse carts (tongas), three-wheeled scooter taxis, laborers hauling wooden carts of freight, barefoot villagers in baggy pants carrying their shoes to rest their feet, Punjabi businessmen in suits, drink vendors with carts with citrus juicers, dusty glasses and sugar cane, and small boys hurrying to deliver tiny pots of tea on trays to offices and stores. Business deals and discussions always required a cup of “Peshawari Chai” green tea with sugar and cardamom. Afghan merchants carrying rolled red carpets would stride past peddlers selling spicey fried vegetables and meats, herds of goats, sheep, and cattle occasionally blocked the way, followed by children collecting dung for fuel. Strings of camels added to the traffic confusion. Always groups of Pathans, swaggering, hawk-nosed tall men wearing turbans, long shirts, and baggy pants, bristling with daggers, pistols, and rifles. Amid the variety of life on the city streets, one segment of the population was conspicuous by its absence: The women. Now and then a figure swathed head to toe in black silk or white cotton cloth would pass on foot or in a tonga. The only visible women were foreigners like me or women visiting from Karachi or Lahore. The latter were usually riding in a taxi or a car. In the cantonment the wives of military officers could be seen in the shopping area occasionally, but that was a different world from the old city.
