One of three women who made the first all-women, guideless ascent of Aoraki
Life dates not yet confirmed
Mountaineering
Sheila MacMurray joined Mavis Davidson and Doreen Pickens in the first all-women, guideless ascent of Aoraki in 1953.
Mavis Davidson organised the expedition and is often identified as its leader. However, the achievement belonged to the whole rope party. A guideless ascent required the climbers to depend on their own experience, judgement, physical ability and teamwork rather than on a professional mountain guide.
The surviving sources do not explain which woman led particular sections of the climb, carried specific equipment or made individual decisions as conditions changed. It would therefore be wrong to assign Sheila a detailed role that cannot be verified. What can be confirmed is that she was not simply an observer or companion. She was a named and active member of the three-woman team that reached the summit together.
Their ascent took place during a period when women could still be excluded from organised climbing expeditions. Assumptions about women’s strength, ability and respectability sometimes limited the opportunities available to them. The success of Sheila, Doreen and Mavis added to the growing evidence that women were fully capable of planning and completing difficult alpine climbs independently.
I haven't been able to find much reliable information about Sheila’s wider life yet. Her birth and death dates, occupation, home community, family connections and broader climbing record remain unconfirmed. The spelling MacMurray is used by Te Ara and the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, although the variant McMurray appears in some later accounts.
Sheila’s story is therefore incomplete, but her place in the history of the ascent is secure. On 6 January 1953, three women climbed Aoraki together. Each of their names belongs in the record.
Related WuHoo story:
More Than Petticoats on the Peaks: Women and the Sacred Slopes of Aoraki