"A Woman's Place Is On Top": The Sylvia Paull Story

In my 40s, I caught the rock climbing bug, and spent time roped up on steep pitches with small holds. Later I turned more to mountaineering and I made some (for me) memorable ascents of such peaks as the Grand Teton in Wyoming, and Mount Shasta and Mount Whitney in California. 

However, as time marched on, and after unsuccessful attempts on Mount Rainer and Mount Shasta’s Hotlum-Bolam Ridge route, reality in respect to my climbing abilities began to take hold. My dreams of further mountaineering eased, and in my 70s I turned to backpacking and other pursuits.

But then, recently, I met Albany resident Sylvia Paull. And while this event didn’t cause me to rush out and try for the nearest 14,000-foot peak, it did revive my interest in mountaineering. For Sylvia had a most remarkable story to tell.

Aside from her well-known technical and literary abilities and accomplishments over the past three decades, I first learned that Sylvia had also won renown as a cyclist, doing the hard rides, competing as an amateur, and winning medals in California. 

She became a core member of the , and board vice chair of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. A whole sporting career in itself. 

But I was then amazed to learn that, in the 70s, she had also done some mountaineering. More important, she made a fundamental contribution to the success of one of the great historic climbs of all time: the first ascent by women of an 8,000 meter peak. 

The mountain was Annapurna in western Nepal, and the feat was accomplished by members of Arlene Blum’s American Woman’s Himalayan Expedition of 1978. (In passing, we should note that Annapurna is actually 8,091 meters high, which converts to 26,545 feet. That’s 12,000 feet higher than Mount Whitney and only 3,000 feet lower than Everest.)

Sylvia and Arlene had roomed together at Reed College in Oregon. Both wound up in Berkeley: Arlene as a biochemist, and Sylvia as an editor for the Office of the President of UC.

By that time, Arlene was a totally dedicated climber, and Sylvia was no stranger to it either, having ascended Mount Shasta and done some bouldering and rock climbing at Indian Rock after she arrived in Berkeley. She had the climber’s natural instinct to go “up.”

When Arlene Blum first proposed the Annapurna expedition, Sylvia had just started a new job and knew she couldn’t take off the three months needed to make the trip to Nepal. She did a training climb with the Annapurna team in the Sierras. 

The demands of her job, however, left little room to engage in the intense day-to-day training necessary to get in shape for a climb of the Annapurna magnitude and difficulty.

(As an example, Arlene Blum often trained by ascending Marin Avenue from the circle to the top and back down again, while carrying a backpack full of books or bricks--or maybe it was books and bricks-- weighing 50 lbs.) 

Nevertheless, the idea of an Annapurna climb by women, led by her friend Arlene, had Sylvia fired up and she was able to participate in the organizational and planning aspects of the project.

An early challenge facing the team was how to attract the funding needed to finance the project. There were hurdles to overcome because climbing major world peaks was, in those days, generally considered the exclusive province of men. 

The great Galen Rowell, a widely known and respected world-class climber and photographer from Berkeley (and owner of the Mountain Light photo gallery here in Albany at that time), expressed the view that women were simply not strong enough to successfully attack the world’s 10th highest (and arguably most dangerous), mountain in the world. 

The American Alpine Association had also initially dismissed Arlene’s plan as unworkable. However, as time went on and support for the expedition within the climbing community began to snowball, the Association relented and sanctioned the project.

But still the financial challenge remained, and it was at this point (as members of the proposed expedition searched for ways to find the necessary resources) that our own Sylvia stepped up, and put her mind, creative juices, and ingenuity to work, to concoct the solution. 

They would raise their own money with T-shirts! And on those T-shirts would appear the phrase:

                              “A Woman’s Place Is on Top”

together with the name of the expedition and an outline of the peak of Annapurna.

Was Sylvia’s Annapurna T-shirt a successful fund-raiser? Is Everest the world’s highest mountain?

The message on that shirt resonated so strongly with women everywhere that, over the next several months, Arlene Blum and her team of climbers were, in fact, able to amass the funds necessary to support a clean shot at the climb they all dreamed about. 

They sold shirts at 10K running races, fairs, talks that Arlene gave at venues such as REI, and through the Sierra Club. And in the end they banked the amazing sum of $80,000, which in those days paid for Sherpas, porters, food, equipment (some of which was donated) and other expenses required for launching a major climbing expedition.

And so, when we see our neighbor Sylvia on her bike around Albany, we should take a moment to reflect that, while she was unable to go to Nepal to share in the triumph (and the tragedy—two climbers were lost) that unfolded there, it was her unique contribution that played a key role in bringing to fruition the 1978 watershed expedition to Annapurna by Arlene Blum’s team of American women, and the successful summit ascent they made there.

(In closing, we might note that Sylvia’s Annapurna T-shirt has earned an enthusiastic following among women throughout the world over the years. It still has legs, still sells well today, and in fact you can purchase one right now at www.arleneblum.com.) 

Everybody makes mistakes ... ! If there's something in this article you think should be corrected, or if something else is amiss, call editor Emilie Raguso at 510-459-8325 or email her at emilier@patch.com.