Born October 19, 1850,
Providence, Rhode Island
Died July 18, 1935,
New York, New York
Annie Smith Peck’s 40-year career as a traveler and record-setting mountain climber began as a hobby and continued to within a year of her death at the age of 85. She climbed mountains throughout the world, and a peak in Peru was even named after her. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, on October 19, 1850, Peck came from a prominent New England family; her father was a successful lawyer. After working for a time as a teacher she attended the University of Michigan. In 1885 she became the first woman to be admitted to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.
Following her studies in Europe, Peck tried to earn her living by giving lectures on Greek archaeology. When this occupation proved unrewarding financially, she decided to switch to giving lectures on her hobby—mountain-climbing. In 1895 she became the third woman to climb the Matterhorn in the Alps, then she went on to climb other mountains in the Alps as well as Mount Shasta in California and Mount Orizaba, at 18,700 feet the highest mountain in Mexico. Buoyed by her success, Peck resolved to climb a mountain that had never been scaled and that was higher than any man had ever climbed.
For this feat Peck chose Mount Illampu, which rises to 21,276 feet north of La Paz in Bolivia and which at that time was thought to be the highest mountain in South America. Traveling to La Paz in July 1903, Peck hired two professional guides and arranged for an American professor of geology to accompany her. The guides proved unreliable and the professor, who was not interested in the climb, became ill along the way. They were able to reach only 15,350 feet before turning back. Peck then went to Peru to climb El Misti, a 19,199-foot peak.
Depressed by her failure, Peck returned to New York. Yet she was determined to try again, and within a year she had obtained financial support for another expedition to Illampu. She departed on June 21, 1904, taking with her a snowsuit made out of animal skins that Robert Edwin Peary (see entry) brought back from the Arctic and that was donated to her by the American Museum of Natural History. Her male companion was an Austrian who had volunteered for the trip—Peck always thought she needed to be accompanied by a man, although they invariably turned out to be unsuited for the task. Climbing Illampu for the second time, she reached 18,000 feet before the pleas of the Austrian and her local guides forced her to turn back.
Not one to give up, Peck traveled to Mount Huascarán in the Andes north of Lima in Peru. She had heard that Huascarán might be even taller than Illampu, although at 22,205 feet it is actually the second-tallest mountain in South America, only 440 feet lower than Mount Aconcagua. Journeying to the city of Yungay at the foot of the mountain, she was accompanied by a young American miner she had met in Yungay as well as some men from Yungay. Almost at the outset she and the miner quarreled about the best way to make the climb, so they ended up taking separate routes. Peck was able to make it to a narrow ledge at 19,000 feet overlooking the glacier that divided the mountain into two peaks, only to descend just in time to miss being buried by an avalanche. After dismissing the miner, she tried climbing up another face of the mountain with the local guides but she was forced to turn back.
Peck was broke when she returned to New York. She was able to go back to Huascarán only because a magazine had given her a $600 advance to write a story about her climbing experiences. Traveling to Peru in 1906, she tried twice more—unsuccessfully—to conquer Huascarán with a local companion she called “E-,” who turned out to be more useless than her previous partners. When she arrived in New York after her failed attempts, she found that the magazine loved her stories and was willing to sponsor another expedition.
Peck went back to Yungay in 1908, meeting two Swiss guides, Rudolf and Gabriel, whom she had hired for the trip. On this attempt Peck managed to climb to the top of Huascarán, but only with great difficulty. She and her guides lost most of their equipment, including the Peary snowsuit, and they were frequently in danger of sliding down the mountain. At the last minute, just as they were about to surmount the top, Rudolf ran ahead of Peck and reached the peak before her. On the trip back down the mountain Rudolf lost his mittens and suffered frostbite; he would later have part of one hand, including a finger, and half of one foot amputated.
At the age of 58 Peck had finally conquered Huascarán. Once she had reached the top she tried to determine the mountain’s height, but that was impossible under prevailing conditions. Estimates indicated that it reached 24,000 feet. If so, then Peck had set a world’s record. However, her great rival, Fanny Bullock Workman (see entry), refused to concede that Peck had beaten her because Workman had climbed to 23,300 feet in the Himalayas.
Workman went so far as to hire a team of American engineers to travel to Peru and measure Huascaran. They found that the peak Peck had climbed was the lower of the two, measuring “only” 21,812 feet. Peck had therefore set a record for the highest climb in the Western Hemisphere but not in the world. The record was to last for 26 years. Peck was given a medal by the Peruvian government, and the peak she had climbed was named Cumbre Aña Peck.
When Peck returned to the United States she wrote about her experiences in a book, A Search for the Apex of America, which was published in 1911. She went on to climb Mount Coropuna in Peru (21,079 feet); on the peak she hung a banner that read “Votes for Women.” Continuing to travel extensively in South America, Peck wrote a guidebook and a statistical handbook on the continent. During 1929 and 1930 she made a tour of the whole continent, using all the commercial airlines that were then in operation and writing a book about her trip.
In January 1935 Peck started out on a trip around the world. She got only as far as Athens where, in February, she became tired while climbing the Acropolis (she was 84 years old). She returned to New York and died there on July 18, 1935.
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