Isabella Charlet-Straton

Mary Isabella Charlet-Straton (née Straton; 28 August 1838 – 12 April 1918) was a British female mountain climber. She made several first ascents in the Alps with her 2nd cousin Emmeline Lewis Lloyd as well as the first winter ascent of Mont Blanc with her future husband Jean Charlet in January 1876. The peak Pointe Isabella was named in her honour after she had taken part in its first ascent.

Biography Early years Straton was born in Willsbridge, England in 1838. When she was eight years old she moved to Kingston upon Hull and relocated again at the age of seventeen to London in pursuit of a better education. Following the deaths of her parents and sisters, she inherited the Straton family fortune in her twenties, becoming financially independent with an income of roughly £4,000 per year.

Career

Straton was introduced to climbing through her friend Emmeline Lewis Lloyd, with whom she travelled throughout the Alps and Pyrenees on hiking and climbing expeditions in the 1860s–70s. In 1870 they became one of the first women to climb Monte Viso and the following year did make the first ascent of Aiguille du Moine. In 1875 they made the first ascent of a peak on the Aiguille de Triolet, which Charlet named Pointe Isabella. They climbed a new peak in the Aiguilles Rouges in 1881, which they named Pointe de la Persévérance in honour of "the perseverance that they had shown before they had dared to confess their affection for one another". One of their sons, Robert, was killed in World War I in 1915. Straton died in 1918 in La Roche-sur-Foron, Haute Savoie, and was buried in Argentière. When Straton and Charlet's grandchildren opened a hotel in Chamonix, they named it Pointe Isabelle in memory of Straton.