Towards the end of the book it’s about: Men. Or how nice it is when you stay in the valley and the women on the mountain are among themselves. Seven women who have completed a “women only” high-altitude tour together in the Alps report the difference it makes for group dynamics and risk assessment, depending on whether men are also involved in such an undertaking or not. Respect is an issue, consideration and inner peace when there is no external pressure.
The great thing about the volume “Mountain Girls”, however, is that the authors are not interested in setting themselves apart from men or justifying the fact that they like to be out and about with their own kind when skiing, climbing, mountain biking or on multi-day hikes. They do what they do, no gender explanation is needed. The women who appear in this book are not fighting against, but are committed to something.
The book is a project by the Munich Mountain Girls. Mountain enthusiastic women from Munich and the surrounding area have come together to form the community founded by Christine Prechsl in 2016 with the aim of sharing their passions, making friends and finding allies. According to their own statements, around 5,000 women are now exchanging ideas in the closed Facebook groups, and the Munich Mountain Girls have 20,000 followers on Instagram.
Map reading combines “facts and fantasies, information and guesswork”
This integrative and precisely non-repellent approach runs through the entire band, which Marta Sobczyszyn and Stefanie Ramb – both with the Munich Mountain Girls – are responsible for, and which illuminates the topic of mountain sports in many different highlights. In this respect, as a man, one reads it with gain and pleasure. In “Mountain Girls” it rarely plays an explicit role that the perspective on things is feminine, for example when it comes to the question of what happens to a group of female mountain friends when the first of them have children.
Otherwise? Anna Hadzelek writes a declaration of love for reading a map. For them, unlike digital representations, it is about more than just factual information on how best to get from one place to another. It’s about their interaction with the map, which shows more than it can grasp at a glance, which it interprets – in other words: it has to read. Hadzelek likes the idea that it takes imagination “to be able to build a three-dimensional idea out of lines, surfaces and colors”. And it doesn’t just automatically spit out tour data like an app. Reading maps, according to Anna Hadzelek, is a combination of “facts and fantasies, information and speculation”.
Julia Topp, on the other hand, describes how infatuated she is with ibexes and that she specifically undertakes mountain tours in those regions of the Alps where there is a chance of seeing these animals. Barbara Heinze, who repairs outdoor clothing, promotes a more sustainable use of equipment and gives care tips so that jackets, pants and backpacks last longer. Marta Sobczyszyn remembers the summer when she worked at the Mittenwalder Hütte in the Karwendel – it was an escape from the city from lovesickness, which she did well.
The freedom of an unbound life is more important than the freedom of the mountains
Katharina Kestler, on the other hand, dreamed of leasing a hut herself for a long time – and explains why, when she actually received a concrete offer in response to an application, she did not turn her dream into reality after all. The freedom that the unrestricted life in Munich granted her ultimately seemed more important to her than the freedom to be her own boss and live in the great outdoors – but tied to the hut and a back-breaking job.
Maybe that’s a female view of many facets of mountain sports: Not so much to think in terms of performance, records or competition and to deal more openly and thus more confidently with moments of weakness or doubt. The life experience that you gain in the mountains cannot be measured in terms of altitude and difficulty levels while climbing.
If it weren’t for Christine Prechsl, the founder of the Munich Mountain Girls, who postulates: “Set yourself high goals!” It is the most decisive encouragement in this good-humored book to cast off any reluctance in whatever respect.
Marta Sobczyszyn, Stefanie Ramb: Mountain Girls. Out and about in the mountains together. Prestel Verlag, Munich, London, New York 2021. 208 pages, 32 euros.