BOOK REVIEW: what emerges is not only a beautiful portrait of a trailblazing woman up to now lost to history but also a book about that eternal question: why do people climb mountains?

Dan Richards knew very little about his great, great aunt, Dorothy Pilley, until, by chance, he came across her memoir written in 1935. He discovers that she had been a pioneering mountaineer of the early 20th Century and had made a first ascent of the North Ridge of Dent Blanche in Switzerland.

Climbing Days is a very personal account of Dan's journey to find out more about her and her husband Ivor, as he travels and climbs across Europe using her book as a guide. He learns the ropes in Wales and Scotland, scrambles in the Lake District, scales summits in Spain and Switzerland, until he finds himself quietly sitting the night before taking on the mighty Dent Blanche himself looking to his great great aunt for inspiration.

Dan brings to life this extraordinary lady who found her independence on the rock face at a time when few women would have dared to climb without a guide. What emerges is not only a beautiful portrait of a trailblazing woman up to now lost to history but also a book about that eternal question: why do people climb mountains?

CAROLINE REECE

WATERSTONES KENDAL