With the exception of Scotsmen in kilts, skirts tend to stoke controversy in the outdoors. The first women mountaineers—like Henriette d’Angeville, who, in 1838, became the second woman to ever successfully climb Mount Blanc—didn’t have much of a choice but to hike in a skirt or dress, given the gendered fashion norms of the nineteenth century. But in the 1900s, as women became more free to wear trousers, skirts quickly fell out of fashion in mountain terrain—and it’s easy to see why. One rain shower and the soaked, thick wool could weigh up to the equivalent of a small child.
Over the next century, technology advanced exponentially, and hems shortened by a good few feet. These days, skirts do still appear in some active contexts—almost every major outdoor retailer sells some version of the garment, whether it’s a stretchy skort made for summer hiking or an insulated piece for layering over leggings in the cold. And some folks still go long: famously, Bolivia’s Cholita Escaladora mountaineers continue to hike the high peaks of the Andes in their traditional apparel—characterized by…
