Delfryn Publications run by Borth-y-Gest’s Cathy Woodhead launched its latest book, ‘Reaching Beyond: the Mountains and Voyages of Denise Evans’, at Plas y Brenin National Mountaineering Centre on 6 December.

Denise was famous for sailing exploits in the South Atlantic and Arctic seas so it was almost fitting that the pre-launch dinner was interrupted by the National Red Alert Storm Darragh warning.

“Denise would have smiled and shrugged,” said Cathy.

Despite the incoming weather, the launch went ahead. Cathy gave a brief presentation outlining Denise’s life, noting she was born in Paris in 1931 and died in Capel Curig in 2023 aged 92. Her parents were both mountaineers and Denise grew up with a love of mountains and the outdoors. After hard climbing in the Alps and making first ascents of Himalayan peaks, she became an intrepid sailor, taking her 33-foot yacht to Greenland, Svalbard and round South America.

Denise was a life-long member of the Pinnacle Club for women climbers and subject of that club’s Heritage Lottery funded ‘oral archive’ project, being interviewed by Adele Long, Vice-President of the Alpine Club (of which Denise was the first and so far only female President). Adele spoke about the project and gave readings and audio clips from her recording with Denise in 2020 when Denise was 88. It was very charming that in this way Denise was a speaker at the event celebrating the book about her life.

Peter Evans, Denise’s son, read movingly from letters from Denise to her mother Nea, also a famous climber, and from the diaries of his father, Sir Charles Evans of Everest fame, about their life together. Stephanie Connor, who sailed and skied with Denise in her later years talked warmly of being inspired in adventurous exploits with a woman who was long past the age when most settle into peaceful retirement.

A couple of short films were shown, one of Denise reminiscing about her school days at St Winifred’s School in Llanfairfechan. Her remark that “The headmistress called me a subversive. And I was!” raised a laugh from those who remembered that she was indeed never one to stick to the norms of society. The other film was a short version of a film that Denise made during an all-woman Himalayan expedition in 1962 to successfully ascend unclimbed peaks in the Jagdula region of West Nepal. The film is called ‘Journey to Jagdula’ and is available on YouTube.

The event was much more than a book launch; it was a celebration of an adventurous life lived to the full by a woman unhindered by social conventions of her time, from school days to Arctic sailing in her 80s.

Storm Darragh did have the last word at the weekend though, as the planting of a memorial tree at the Pinnacle Club cottage in Cwm Dyli, Nant Gwynant, had to be cancelled as roads were closed by fallen trees. Again, Denise would have smiled and shrugged.

Copies of the book are available from Porthmadog’s Browsers Bookshop in Porthmadog and Delfryn Publications.