The Little Heroine
by William Minshall
Colverdale, OR
My grandaunt, Della A. (Watson) Montgomery (1876-1967), scaled Oregon’s highest mountain twice in the 1890s. Some of my most pleasant childhood memories were of visits to my Aunt Della’s home. Whenever entering her house, I would stop in the hallway to study a painting hanging on the wall depicting a line of climbers reaching the the summit of a snow covered mountain. She explained that it showed an actual party of climbers reaching the summit of Oregon’s Mt. Hood, and that the third figure below the summit, wearing a long ankle length skirt, was she. I loved to hear her recount the details of that climb, especially the part about, “I had to give up some of my dignity by dropping petticoats along the way to lighten the load.”
Della’s family had moved from Indiana to a farm in Hood River Valley. There, Della met the Langille family who were closely associated with Mt. Hood in the 1890s. Sarah Langille and her sons operated Cloud Cap Inn, and the boys loved exploring the peak and guiding climbers to the summit. In 1893, Doug and Will Langille invited Della, a young girl of just 15 years, to join them on a climb to the top of the peak.
On August 10, the three climbers arose at 4:30 a.m. and were on the trail from the inn at 5:30. They followed the route known as Wy’east, first climbing Cooper Spur, then crossing the icy surface of Newton Clark Glacier to a long high ridge leading to the summit. They stopped near the “hot rocks,” where steam issues from the ridge, to eat lunch and send mirrored sun flashes back to the inn. As they reached the topmost point, they marveled at the breathtaking view in all directions, and then signed the summit register.
Their descent followed the same route they took coming up, requiring great care not to fall in the loose rocks and steep snow slopes. The tired group reached the inn by 4:30 p.m. This climb marked only the second time a woman had climbed Mt. Hood by that route. Greatly impressed with Della’s efforts, Doug Langille composed a colorfully written account of the climb in which he refers to her as their “Little Heroine.”
The following year, a group of Mt. Hood climbers and hikers decided to organize a mountaineering club to be called the Mazamas. A charter climb was made on July 19, 1894 when 155 men and 38 women reached the summit. The Langilles invited Della to join the group of 22 who started at Cloud Cap Inn and ascended by the steep Cooper Spur route. Photographer C. C. Lewis also climbed with that group and manage to photograph the line of climbers just reaching the summit. An unknown artist made a water color painting based on that much published photo, the same painting that used to hang on my Grandaunt Della’s wall.
