Fun_People Archive
31 May
Another long-standing myth blown to smithereens!

Date: Tue, 31 May 94 12:45:54 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: Another long-standing myth blown to smithereens!

Forwarded-by: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
From: the Weekly World News, dated May 10, 1994:

Headline:
        I climbed the Matterhorn -- in high heels and a cocktail dress!

Picture:
        Tall blond woman wearing sequined low cut cocktail dress
        (spaghetti straps, very long slit for legs), high heeled
        open-style pumps (open toe & just straps around ankle and
        heel).  Hair tied up on top in bun, long polished nails.
        Matterhorn picture in background.

Caption: Pretty Greta Ludland says she wanted "to show the world you
        don't have to wear unladylike clothes to climb mountains."

Zermatt, Switzerland -- Fashion-conscious Greta Ludland made history
last week when she climbed the treacherous Matterhorn in a cocktail
dress and high heels!

It took the Swiss adventuress and her 4-man party three days to scale
the 14,780-foot crest but she was determined to prove that a woman can
perform rugged, physically demanding feats and still "look like a
lady".

She wrapped herself in blankets at night but during the day the sheer
physical exertion of the climb kept her warm.

"I'm appalled when I see mountain climbers dressed in those horrid
parkas and clodhopper boots," the pretty bachelor gal, 24, told
reporters after her historic climb.

"I was determined to show the world that women who love the outdoors
don't have to wear unladylike clothes in order to enjoy their chosen
sport."

Greta suffered frost bitten toes and dehydration but has since
recovered with no lasting ill effects.

The blonde secretary has lived in the Alps all her life and began
climbing at an early age.  She grew up looking at the forbidding
Matterhorn every single day.

Her lifelong goal was to eventually climb the killer mountain on which
Edward Whymper, the first man to reach the top, lost four of his party
in 1865.

"For years people told me it wasn't ladylike to climb mountains.  They
accused me of being a tomboy."

"I almost stopped climbing because I wanted my friends to think of me
as feminine.  But one day I realized that part of the reason people
thought that way about me was the 'macho' clothing I was wearing."

"I decided then and there to always dress like a lady -- even on the
steep and jagged face of a mountain."

And Greta says being well dressed has given her very real advantages in
her climbs.

"Digging my high heels into the hard ice surface gives me excellent
footing.  And being free of a cumbersome parka, I have more freedom of
movement."

© 1994 Peter Langston