As deputy leader, Blum helps guide the first women’s team to climb Mount McKinley (Denali), reinforcing women’s leadership in alpinism.
On June 6, 1971, Arlene Blum served as deputy leader of what contemporary accounts describe as the first women’s team to climb Mount McKinley (Denali). In this role, she helped coordinate logistics, route decisions, and team safety on one of North America’s most formidable peaks.
While she had co‑led the pioneering Denali Damsels ascent the previous year, this 1971 expedition was later reported as the first women’s team on the mountain, underscoring a period in which women climbers were testing and expanding their presence in high‑altitude environments. As deputy leader, Blum navigated both the technical demands of the climb and the social barriers of a male‑dominated sport where women’s leadership was still unusual.
The ascent’s significance lies in its contribution to normalizing women-led and women‑staffed expeditions. By publicly taking on a formal leadership role in a major climb, Blum modeled a kind of authority that had rarely been attributed to female alpinists. The expedition helped consolidate her reputation as a serious climber and organizer, and it provided further impetus for the all‑women Himalayan projects she would champion later in the decade.