[1][2] She was the youngest of five children born to William Cecil Slingsby (1849–1920), a mill owner and climber with extensive experience in Norway who became known as "the father of Norwegian mountaineering".
[2] The same year, she co-founded the Pinnacle Club, a club for women rock climbers that she felt would "serve the double purpose of promoting the independent development of the climbing art amongst women and of bringing into touch with one another those who are already united by the bond of common love for a noble sport".
[7] An article published in the Alpine Journal after Winthrop Young's death noted that she had earned "her own special place in mountaineering history" for her involvement with the Pinnacle Club.
Among these climbs in the Alps was a "spectacular" traverse of the Hohstock made by Eleanor, Geoffrey and Jocelin with a mountain guide in 1931.
[2] Winthrop Young edited her father's book, Norway: the Northern Playground (1941), to which her husband appended a biographical sketch of Slingsby.