Brede Arkless

Brede Arkless, born Brede Boyle in Manchester on 10 August 1939 and raised in Ireland, was a British rock climber and mountaineer who played an active part in the all-women's climbing movement. She left school at fourteen, began climbing at Dalkey Quarry, and by the early 1960s worked as a climbing instructor in North Wales. She married the mountaineer Geoff Arkless in 1964 and they founded a climbing school in Wales. She was the second woman to qualify as a British Mountain Guide and the first to hold the international UIAGM mountain guide badge. After moving to New Zealand in 1990 she guided twenty-two ascents of Aoraki Mount Cook while in her fifties, and in 2000 she attempted Everest as the oldest woman to try, retreating at about 8,500 metres. She died of pancreatic cancer on 18 March 2006, and an outdoor centre in East London bears her name.