Alice Cross

Also known as Jammy and Alice Nelson

Quick Info

From United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Date of birth 1911
Date of death 2004
Age between 92 and 94 years old
Gender Female
Climbing
Hardest Trad (Worked) E1

Working-class Lake District climber notable for hard repeats in the 1930s. Went on to manage the Old Dungeon Ghyll hotel, establishing it as a base for climbing and climbers in the 1950s, and helped found the Langdale Mountain rescue team.

Alice Nelson became Alice Cross when she married her mountaineering partner, Sid Cross. Earlier, she’d acquired the nickname Jammy at school – a take on the French “ne jamais”, meaning never. Alice, it seems, was a driven child.

She ... would walk 15 or so miles from Kendal, up into the Lakes. Once there, she’d have a climb – and then walk 15 miles home, so she could be at work in the morning, as a clerk at K Shoes.

Roy Wilkinson

... the best all-round British female mountaineer of the inter-war years.

Colin Wells

References

[1] https://www.roywilkinson.co.uk/2020/10/31/aerial-sky-benders/

[2] https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_2004_files/AJ%202004%20248-254%20Wells%20Borthwick%20Cross.pdf

Contributors
42 contributions since 28th April 2026.

Quick Info

From United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Date of birth 1911
Date of death 2004
Age between 92 and 94 years old
Gender Female
Climbing
Hardest Trad (Worked) E1

Working-class Lake District climber notable for hard repeats in the 1930s. Went on to manage the Old Dungeon Ghyll hotel, establishing it as a base for climbing and climbers in the 1950s, and helped found the Langdale Mountain rescue team.

Alice Nelson became Alice Cross when she married her mountaineering partner, Sid Cross. Earlier, she’d acquired the nickname Jammy at school – a take on the French “ne jamais”, meaning never. Alice, it seems, was a driven child.

She ... would walk 15 or so miles from Kendal, up into the Lakes. Once there, she’d have a climb – and then walk 15 miles home, so she could be at work in the morning, as a clerk at K Shoes.

Roy Wilkinson

... the best all-round British female mountaineer of the inter-war years.

Colin Wells

References

[1] https://www.roywilkinson.co.uk/2020/10/31/aerial-sky-benders/

[2] https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_2004_files/AJ%202004%20248-254%20Wells%20Borthwick%20Cross.pdf

Contributors
42 contributions since 28th April 2026.

Pics + Vids

No pics or vids yet.


Ascents

Loading ascents...