Florence Clark and her “Eskimo dog team”

According to the Fall 2008 newsletter of the Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society, in 1928 Ed and Florence Clark moved to the town of Lincoln in the White Mountains of New Hampshire to raise sled dogs and demonstrate their abilities for tourists.  On April 5, 1932, Florence summited Mt. Washington with a team of dogs, becoming the first woman and only the second person to do so.  The postcard above has a handwritten date on the back, “April 1932,” indicating it was taken at the time of her historic ascent.

In a post on Facebook, New Hampshire journalist and historian Dan Szczesny wrote the following:

The story of her ascent is the stuff of legend – she soloed the trip, went up without crampons (using only rubber boots), barely averted disaster at the five mile mark when her sled hit a patch of ice and overturned, forcing Florence to vault over the sled and stop its fall with an ax. Finally, when one of her dogs pushed a duffel containing her sleeping bag off the edge, Florence had to climb down to retrieve it and then it took her an hour to climb back up, cutting steps in the ice with one hand while pulling the duffel up with the other.

Mount Washington is the highest peak in the northeastern United States.