Helping prove that women could form their own high-alpine team
Doreen Ellen Pickens, later Urquhart and Murie
1926–2008
Mountaineering
Teaching
Doreen Pickens joined Mavis Davidson and Sheila MacMurray in the first all-women, guideless ascent of Aoraki in 1953.
Doreen Ellen Pickens was born in Auckland in 1926. She trained as a teacher and later recalled teaching in poorer communities. While studying in Auckland, she became involved in tramping and climbing and joined the Alpine Sports Club.
Her place in New Zealand mountaineering history was secured on 6 January 1953, when she climbed Aoraki with Mavis Davidson and Sheila MacMurray. Together, they completed the first documented all-women ascent of New Zealand’s highest mountain.
A surviving photograph shows the three climbers near the summit. Sheila stands on the left, Mavis on the right and Doreen in the centre, carrying an ice axe and connected to her companions by climbing ropes.
The photograph is important because Doreen can easily disappear into the description as one of Mavis Davidson’s climbing partners. Mountaineering, however, is team work. A rope party depends on each climber’s preparation, fitness, technical ability, judgement and response to changing conditions.
Doreen was not simply accompanying a better-known leader. She was one of three experienced women who planned, attempted and completed the climb together.
Their ascent did not make them the first women to reach the summit of Aoraki. Freda du Faur had achieved that in 1910 with guides Peter and Alec Graham. What was different in 1953 was that Davidson, Pickens and MacMurray formed a women-only climbing team. They demonstrated that women could organise and complete a major alpine expedition without male guides or climbing companions.
Doreen’s involvement in the mountains extended beyond this single achievement. In an oral history recorded in 1997, she discussed her childhood, education, love of reading and sport, teacher training, tramping and climbing. She also described weekend expeditions, the equipment and clothing climbers used and time spent at Flock Hill Station in the Canterbury high country.
Her memories reveal that the Aoraki ascent was not an isolated adventure. It grew from accumulated experience, club involvement and time spent learning how to move through difficult mountain country.
Doreen later recalled encountering sexual discrimination within mountaineering. According to the summary of her oral history, she was initially refused membership of the New Zealand Alpine Club and remembered this as the first time she had personally recognised discrimination because she was a woman. She was later nominated for full membership. The recording or full transcript should be consulted before adding more detail about the circumstances.
Her recollection helps place the summit photograph in context. Women could demonstrate their ability on one of New Zealand’s most demanding mountains while still facing questions about whether they belonged within the organisations that shaped and recorded the sport.
Doreen later became known as Doreen Urquhart and Doreen Murie. She died in 2008. Her life was remembered in an obituary by Bob Cawley in the New Zealand Alpine Journal. Several hours of recorded interviews are preserved by the Alexander Turnbull Library, providing strong leads for further research into her teaching, climbing partnerships, family life and later years.
Doreen’s connection to South Canterbury lies primarily through Aoraki and the surrounding alpine landscape. (No evidence has yet been found that she lived in Timaru or elsewhere in South Canterbury.)
Aoraki is not simply the setting for a sporting achievement. The maunga is an ancestor of immense significance to Ngāi Tahu. Doreen and her companions climbed within a cultural landscape whose history and meaning long predate organised European mountaineering. Language such as “conquering” the mountain should therefore be avoided.
Doreen Pickens’ impact: Doreen helped create a visible precedent for women working together as a high-alpine climbing team. Her contribution challenges histories that celebrate a single expedition leader while leaving other skilled participants in the caption. The 1953 ascent belonged to Mavis Davidson, Sheila MacMurray and Doreen Pickens collectively. Each woman was necessary to the achievement.
Read the wider WuHoo story:
More Than Petticoats on the Peaks: Women and the Sacred Slopes of Aoraki
This story explores women’s mountaineering around Aoraki, including Freda du Faur and the 1953 all-women ascent.
Sources
Te Ara, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.
The first all-woman ascent of Aoraki/Mount Cook
Confirms the climbers’ names, the date of the ascent, Doreen’s position in the photograph and its status as the first all-women ascent.
Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.
Murie, Doreen Ellen, 1926–2008
Supports Doreen’s life years, Auckland birth, teaching background, Alpine Sports Club involvement and the contents of her 1997 oral history.
Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.
Interview with Doreen Murie
Catalogue record for Doreen’s seven-hour oral history recorded on 27 and 28 September 1997.
Bob Cawley.
Doreen Murie (Urquhart) née Pickens, 1926–2008, New Zealand Alpine Journal, vol. 60, 2008, p. 134.
Obituary and portrait lead. The full article should still be consulted.
WuHoo Timaru.
More Than Petticoats on the Peaks: Women and the Sacred Slopes of Aoraki
Existing WuHoo research connecting Doreen’s ascent with the wider history of women climbing Aoraki.