Keen, Dora, 1871-

One of the world's first female mountaineers, Dora Keen (born 1871), defied social norms of the day by taking up mountain climbing and traveling and becoming the first person to climb the peak of Mount Blackburn, the highest peak in the Wrangell Mountains range, Alaska. Keen's 1911 expedition to Mount Blackburn was a groundbreaking trip in several ways; it was the first expedition to use dogs on a mountain, the first to succeed without Swiss guides, the first to camp in snow caves, and the first to make a prolonged night ascent. Her first expedition to the peak was undertaken with only four gold-miners (Charlie McGonagall, Pete Anderson, Billy Taylor and Tom Lloyd) and a team of sled dogs. After multiple attempts to reach the summit via various routes, inadequate supplies and bad weather forced the party to turn back after two weeks. Keen returned to Mount Blackburn with George W. Handy; they successfully reached the summit on May 19, 1912 (by way of the Kennicott Glacier and East Face). The couple would marry four years later. In 1960, it was discovered that the eastern peak (now called Mount Kennedy) climbed by Keen, was the shorter of the two peaks of Mount Blackburn.