FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:  ccswhite@juno.com                             FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Donna Jerdo of Moriah, Barb Harris and Judy King of Plattsburgh, Marta Bolton of Morrisonville, Connie Morrison of Jay, and Peggy MacKellar of Lake Placid are among the thirty-three women featured in Women With Altitude: Challenging the Adirondack High Peaks in Winter published in November by North Country Books, www.northcountrybooks.com <http://www.northcountrybooks.com/> .   The book offers an exciting new perspective on the Adirondack High Peaks through first-hand accounts of scaling the forty-six peaks over 4,000 feet in winter.   Biographies of the women show why and how they pursue this challenging and rewarding sport.  A brief history of winter hiking in the High Peaks and of the Adirondack Forty-Sixers Club is included.

Donna Jerdo works at Mountain Lake Services.  Her daughter, Julie, persuaded the family to hike to Blueberry Cobbles and Bald Mt., where Donna says she couldn't believe her eyes when they saw the view.  Her brother, Michael, knew a man that had hiked all forty-six High Peaks and suggested that maybe they should do it.  Donna and her husband Stewart climbed New York's highest mountain, 5,344-foot Mt. Marcy and began the odyssey, hiking big peaks with Julie, their son Johnathan, and toddler Jarrah in a backpack.  Donna, Stewart and Michael became 46ers in only fourteen months.  In March 2000 on 4,827-foot Basin Mt., the couple became Winter 46ers.  The photo of Donna, on the summit of Mt. Marcy in winter, taken by Stewart, is the cover of Women With Altitude.

Barb is the immediate past president of the Adirondack Forty-Sixers Club, whose members have climbed to the summits of all forty-six peaks over 4,000 feet, most in Essex County.  Barb served previously as Director and Vice President of the club.  She is one of the few women to have scaled all the High Peaks in winter twice, and is the first woman to complete both the Adirondack Hundred Highest and all High Peaks in each season of the year.  She is a Northeastern 111er, having climbed all peaks over 4,000 feet in New York and New England, and has backpacked the 133-mile Northville-Placid Trail.  Barb made a CD recording with the late Forty-Sixers Club beloved historian, Grace Hudowalski, to preserve voices and stories about the club's beginning and early mountain adventures.  Barb first became a Winter 46er on 4,960-foot Mt. Haystack in 1998.

Judy was receptionist at the Plattsburgh Press Republican.  On Whiteface Mountain she and her husband, Ellsworth ('Ellsie') King, learned about the Adirondack Forty-Sixers Club and determined to hike all forty-six.  Their son joined them in the celebration on Table Mt. when they finished, and the last thing on Judy's mind was hiking them all again in the winter; she feared winter in the mountains!  Friends kept talking about doing the High Peaks in winter, so the couple bought crampons and other gear and though weather often stopped them on their day out there, Sunday, they completed two full rounds of the forty-six High Peaks in winter, becoming Winter 46ers first on 4,714-foot Colden Mt.

Marta Bolton has hiked nearly five winter rounds of the High Peaks.  She has been a mentor for others following in her tracks (literally!)  For years Marta worked two jobs, putting in long hours in order to get Wednesdays and weekends off to hike.  She had no intention of climbing all forty-six High Peaks in winter, but wanted to add more adventure by doing some trailed peaks in winter.  One auspicious winter day Grace Hudowalski, the 46er Club historian, asked the couple to put a new summit log on Tabletop Mt., one of the peaks without a trail.  The rest is history.  Marta wrote poetry and here is how one poem ended: 'The mountains give you confidence within; Have trust in yourself, they'll reward you in the end. They showed me pureness in the water, calmness in the breeze, The stillness of the land, and the beauty I have in me.'

Connie Southmayd Morrison is the granddaughter five generations removed of one of the original settlers in Jay.  She grew up on the Ausable River and taught Physical Education at AuSable Valley Central School.  Her daughter, Meredith, suggested in her junior year of high school that they climb 'all' the mountains.  'Not in one summer!'  Connie said, and so it began.  Connie earned the 346-hour conservation badge for improving and maintaining trails, working both with the Adirondack Forty-Sixers and the Adirondack Mt. Club.  She feels strongly about the preservation of the environment and supports the Nature Conservancy.   Connie became a Winter 46er on the summit of 4,857-foot Dix Mt. in 1999.

Peggy MacKellar is a dental hygienist in Lake Placid whose interests and skills are prodigious.  She plays the piano, is a member of the Adirondack Singers, downhill and cross-country skis, canoes, water-skis, enjoys baking, gardening, and home renovation and construction.  She is a Director of the Adirondack Forty-Sixers Club.  Her stories show radical transformations to a level of fitness that enables one to hike a three-peak, trailless mountain range in winter in a record ten and a half hours.  This happened only eighty-eight days after hiking Allen Mt. in winter, after which she could barely climb into a van and slept for two days afterward.  Peggy has completed two full rounds, first becoming a Winter 46er on 4,857-foot Dix Mt. in 1998.

Although the women in this book describe frostbite, forced bivouacs, falling through icy brooks, seventy-mile-an-hour summit winds, scaling icy cliffs, a near-fatal fall, the emotion conveyed is of 'the peak experience.'  In spite of misadventures, people say these are the greatest experiences of a lifetime, especially finding the elusive canisters that were on the summits of mountains with no trails!  These women Winter 46ed during the canister period; they were removed in 2001.  To date, 313 people are Winter 46ers, fifty of them women.

Carol White, a 1997 Winter 46er, compiled over 200 stories for Women With Altitude from climbing journals, questionnaires, and hiking letters written to the Forty-Sixers Club historian, Grace Hudowalski, which are now stored in the New York State Archives in Albany.  White authored Catskill Day Hikes for All Seasons and edits Catskill Trails, both Adirondack Mountain Club publications.  She is Recording Secretary for the Adirondack Forty-Sixers Club and Conservation Chair of the Catskill 3500 Club.