Meta Brevoort

Meta Brevoort (1825 to 1876) was an American mountain climber and pioneer in alpine history, known for her many first ascents and as a trailblazer in winter mountaineering. Born into New York high society and schooled in a Paris convent, she took up climbing at the age of 39 after travelling to the Bernese Oberland and Zermatt in 1865 with her nephew William Augustus Brevoort Coolidge, whom she introduced to alpine mountaineering; he went on to over 1,700 climbs and became the most prominent alpine historian of the Victorian era. Climbing with Coolidge and the guide Christian Almer, she made important ascents in the 1860s and 1870s, among them in 1870 the first ascent of the Eiger by the southeast ridge and the first winter ascent of the Jungfrau. The Pointe Brevoort in the Haut Dauphiné is named after her.