Joyce Dunsheath

Joyce Dunsheath (8 November 1902 – 30 July 1976), née Cissie Providence Houchen, was an English mountaineer, traveller, explorer and writer.

Personal life Born in Heigham, near Norwich, she was the daughter of Charles Houchen, insurance clerk, and Gertrude Providence, née Balls.

She married in 1938 Percy Dunsheath (1886–1979). and a widower. Joyce had met him during a skiing holiday in the Austrian Alps. They made their home at St Paul, Abinger Hammer, Surrey.

Education & awards She obtained a Degree in Modern Languages at Bedford College, University of London, in 1924. she was able to survey thoroughly the Bara Shigri Glacier, by means of plane-table and panoramic camera, in order to compile subsequently a detailed map based on her detailed processing of her photographs and figures. In July 1957 she climbed the highest mountain in Europe, the 18,000 feet high, snow-capped Mount Elbrus, in the Caucasus region, walking through its western, central regions, and in Svanetia, Georgia. The whole area had been shut to the public since the Russian Revolution, and she was able to access it thanks to an invitation from the deputy Minister of Electric Power Stations, who had been in touch with her husband Percy about organizing an international electro-technical conference in Russia.

In 1961, she climbed Mount Damavand in Afghanistan. The account of her journey and her companion Eleanor Baillie in this expedition can be read on her published book Afghan Quest (Harrap, 1961).

In 1964 she was invited by Bharat Scouts and Guides' Association to lead a team of six Indian women, aged between 18 and 31, to climb Mount Mrigthuni, 22,490 feet high, between the frontiers of Tibet and Nepal, in the Garhwal Himalayas. Following the successful ascent of Mount Everest by Sherpa Tensing in the team led by Sir John Hunt's in 1953, there was a very active interest in climbing in India, with climbing courses becoming very popular. The expedition was successful, and "would make the path easier in all senses for future generations of Indian women".

She also climbed in the Japanese Alps, the Canadian Rockies, with the other members of the expedition to the Bara-Shigri glacier Guest of the Soviets, 1959 Afghan Quest, 1961

Together with a number of articles in the Ladies Alpine Club Journal.

Legacy She was a paladin of a conception of mountaineering in its purest sense, free from professionalism and competition, and she petitioned passionately to promote her views. According to her, the right approach to it was to regard it as "a sport to be enjoyed ... to harden the body and learn the skills which will make for success ... each one matching her own strength against the strength of the mountain ... involving the whole man, physical, mental and spiritual ... those gaining the summit know that the spirit of the hill is not of this world".