Great Hearts: First Ladies of Aoraki Mount Cook

Kia ora e te whānau, I’m Hazel, and I’m passionate about connecting literature to landscape through words and people. I’ve been busy drafting my fifth book, Great Hearts: First Ladies of Aoraki Mount Cook, which celebrates the early women climbers of our most iconic alpine region, and I’m seeking support to bring it to life and make yet another one of my crazy dreams a reality. 

I’m a writer, outdoors enthusiast, and lover of big landscapes. I’ve published four books: Fire & Ice: Secrets, histories, treasures and mysteries of Tongariro National Park; Solo: Backcountry adventuring in Aotearoa New Zealand; Wild Westie, a biography of Sir Bob Harvey; and Sell!, a history of the advertising industry. I have a Masters in Creative Writing with first-class honours and an MA in media studies, and I’m dedicated to bringing untold stories to life through creative, accessible writing.

In 2025 I was honoured to be awarded the inaugural Luna Foundation writer’s residency and a residency at the Robert Lord Writers Cottage – precious time I used to write Great Hearts. I live in, and love, the Ruapehu region, and I’m usually found somewhere near a mountain or a lake.

In publishing this book I’m collaborating with Massey University Press, a leading New Zealand publisher of intelligent, relevant books for intelligent, inquiring readers. MUP published my last two books and I reckon they have a keen eye for what people will be interested in. They’re also just really good humans.

In New Zealand, books rarely make money – in fact, they usually cost a lot of money. Great Hearts has already received generous support from Tūpiki Trust, the New Zealand Alpine Club’s DOW Hall Publications fund and FMC's Mountain and Forest Trust, and I am hugely grateful. But to fully cover the hard costs of producing the book, we still have a funding gap.

Your support will help us:

• cover essential production costs such as printing, shipping, photography and more
• pay for additional historic images
• commit to a flexibound or hardcover edition – a beautiful, durable format worthy of this history (and tough enough to survive in your tramping pack).

We want to honour New Zealand’s historic women climbers with the best publication we can.

I’m not asking for funds for myself – only for help to bring this book to life. All funds go directly to Massey University Press, who manage the production budget, and everyone who donates will receive a discount code for a copy of the book purchased through MUP, plus my everlasting, heartfelt thanks.

Your donation, however small, will be a game changer. I reckon even $5 makes you a legend.

In the early 20th century the isolated Hermitage hotel at Aoraki Mount Cook became a tourism mecca, a curious mixture of shiny, wealthy visitors and rugged, unwashed mountaineers. Climbers flocked to snap up first ascents of the towering peaks of the Southern Alps, many of them independently wealthy – and a few of them, women.

Most were content with a short stroll to inspect a glacier face and then turn their attentions to their frock of choice for dinner that night. But a few aspired to climb the high peaks, and these women were labelled ‘Great Hearts’ by climber Constance Barnicoat: “Among women climbers there are a few Great Hearts, who may hold up their heads with most men climbers. After this chosen few, there are many Ready-to-Halts, who go on for a few years, but not long enough to attain real skill or knowledge of the mountains.”

The Great Hearts of early New Zealand mountaineering had to flout convention to achieve their goals. In 1910 Freda du Faur became the first woman to climb Aoraki Mount Cook, and a chief preoccupation in doing so was the confounding length of her skirt. Condemned as too long to be safe by ‘serious’ climbers, and far too short by the scandalised guardians of female reputation who sat in judgement at the Hermitage, Freda could not win. Her guide, Peter Graham, laughed: “Skirt! I should call it a frill.”

While Freda wore a skirt, Constance Barnicoat – who was not only an adventurer but also a journalist with a reputation as a ‘first-class scold’ in her writing – shunned the garment in favour of trousers, causing a sensation. Constance had a first to her name too – the first woman to ascend the Copland Pass. A peak in the southern alps is named in her honour.

Betsy Blunden, the first female alpine guide in the world, found out later she only got the job because the man interviewing her decided she was a “fine, buxom-looking wench”, but she grabbed the opportunity and bluffed her way into the mountaineering community at the Hermitage. Betsy was largely shut out by the all-male Canterbury Mountaineering Club but was vindicated through her first ascent of Mount Oates, in Arthurs Pass National Park. Men laughed at her – until she returned more successful than them.

Great Hearts: First Ladies of Aoraki Mount Cook is a blended-genre social history of New Zealand’s early women mountaineers. The stories of these women have so far only been told in niche spaces and fragmented places; Great Hearts will pull them together in a compelling and creative new way, showing the journey from women walking on the glaciers in 1873 through to the first all-women, unguided climb of Aoraki Mount Cook in 1953.

Great Hearts tells the stories of 30 of these early women adventurers, while illuminating the wider narrative of how women’s climbing emerged – how women struggled for their own place, time, status and recognition.

This is my fifth book, and it's due to hit shelves in October 2026.

I’ve written this book in my own time, around holding down a full-time job in something entirely different – because you don’t write books like this for the money, you do it because you care deeply about the stories.

I’m a strong believer that representation matters – you can’t be what you can’t see. I want emerging women mountaineers and aspiring female adventurers to be inspired by the incredible history of our badass lady climbers, to see that a path has already been carved out by these tough, talented, tenacious women.

Backing this project helps honour their legacy, preserve their stories, and inspire the next generation of Great Hearts.