Georgia Engelhard

Georgia E. Engelhard Cromwell (November 19, 1906 – September 14, 1986) was an American mountaineer in the Canadian Rockies and the Selkirk and Purcell ranges. She was the first female climber to ascend many of the peaks in the Rockies and was the leading female amateur climber of her day. She was also an accomplished painter and photographer. Stieglitz was a close confidant and mentor to Engelhard, and the two corresponded vigorously from the time she was twelve into her early twenties. Stieglitz sponsored a month-long exhibition of her water colors and drawings at his famous gallery, 291, in 1916, when she was just 10 years old. Later in life, she abandoned painting and turned to photography.

In her early 20s, she won prizes for her equestrian skills at the National Horse Show in New York.

Mountain climbing Engelhard had visited the European Alps in her teens. In 1926, she climbed in the Mount Rainier area with her father. That same year, her family visited the Canadian Rockies, where she climbed Pinnacle Mountain with Edward Feuz, Jr. assisting as her guide. She returned to the Rockies for 15 summers during the next 25 years.

In 1929, Engelhard climbed nine peaks in the Canadian Rockies: Mount Lefroy, the traverse of the two Pope's Peaks, the traverse of Haddo Peak and Mount Aberdeen, Mount Hungabee, Mount Huber, Mount Victoria, and Mount Biddle.

In 1931, she climbed a total of 38 peaks in the Canadian Rockies, Selkirks, and Purcells. She reached the summit of Mount Victoria eight times that summer, with seven of the trips made as a part of the filming of the movie She Climbs to Conquer (1932), which was directed by William J. Oliver, the famed Calgary-based film maker. The film was sponsored by Parks Canada, the parks branch of the Canadian national government, and was instrumental in drawing increased tourism to the Canadian Rockies. Engelhard appears in the film as an unnamed female climbing along with her guide Edward Feuz.

Engelhard completed 32 first ascents in the Rockies and Selkirks.

She climbed several of the US Rocky Mountains in Colorado and most of the Cascade Volcanoes.

In 1935 she climbed the European Alps for the first time, joining Oliver Eaton (Tony) Cromwell, Jr., who became a member of the 1939 failed German-American expedition up the Pakistani peak of K2. Cromwell was a veteran mountaineer and he and Engelhard married in 1947 after the two had climbed together for several years, mostly in the Canadian Rockies.

Painting and photography Her aunt Georgia O'Keeffe mentored Engelhard as a painter. The two artists frequently painted together at O'Keeffe and Stieglitz's summer house on Lake George and occasionally took excursions together, sometimes walking without clothes for miles through the dense forests.

Engelhard's paintings reflected O'Keeffe's influence. Their two styles, in fact, became so similar that late in life O'Keeffe received a letter from an art collector, enclosing a photo of a painting, asking if the particular painting had, in fact, been painted by O'Keeffe. O'Keeffe was not sure and wrote to Engelhard in Switzerland enclosing the photograph of the painting. Engelhard replied that it was she, in fact, who had done the painting.

Mount Cromwell and Cromwell Tower are named after Engelhard's husband, Tony Cromwell.

Additional sources Smith, Cyndi. Off the Beaten Track: Women Adventurers and Mountaineers in Western Canada. Coyote Books, 1989. .