My first climb was only about 40 feet up a sheer rock face in Utah, and I remember when I first saw it, I looked up and said, ”How in the world do you get up there?” The first time I tried I couldn`t even get off the ground.
I first actually climbed when I was 18. I absolutely fell in love with it. In rock climbing you don`t encounter the snow and ice you get on a mountain. What I enjoyed about rock climbing is that each move is deliberate and very graceful because you have to conserve your energy. The same holds true for mountain climbing. Each move on ice and snow has to be deliberate because you have to conserve your energy, and you have to be very controlled. You also have to be able to control your thoughts. If you are scared, you have to be able to recognize that, ”Yeah, this is really frightening, I could fall or slip.” But at the same time you have to be able to relax your body and make that fear go away. You can`t really deliberate and get hung up on that fear or you`ll fall.
After two years in college, I quit so I could do this. It was a passion, a love relationship. First, infatuation, then respect, then respect and knowledge. Today, I am no longer infatuated, I know exactly what I`m getting into.
Each mountain presents some challenges and rewards, and I learned something on every mountain I ever climbed. In the early years, I took some foolish risks. The first time I climbed in Alaska, I was about 19, and I thought I was ready to go, even though I wasn`t.
We were about 1,000 feet from the top when I was in my first avalanche. I was in tears. I lost my equipment. We were just climbing on one section, and it fell. We slid 70 feet.
I realized then that if I`m going to climb a mountain, I`d better be prepared. (So) for a year, I climbed mountains I knew were within my ability. Then I went to the Canadian Rockies, and set out on what I thought was going to be a one-day climb. At the top it was beautiful, so we rested; when we woke up, there was a blizzard.
We had no way to get off the mountain and we didn`t have any food or sleeping bags with us because we hadn`t planned to stay the night.
It took three days to get off that mountain. I learned how strong I was mentally on that peak and I also realized how easy it was for people to give up and die.
At the worst point, we were going to climb this very steep ice face, and I was below my partner. It was dark out and he kept knocking chunks of ice on me. I was really cold, I was exhausted, I was hungry and tired. I wanted to sleep. When this ice kept coming down on me I was in tears because it hurt, and I thought how easy it would be just to unclip myself from the rope and fall off into space and die. That`s when I realized how much easier it is to die, and how much harder it is to move on beyond that point of discomfort and pain and slowly progress forward and live.
You transcend that discomfort, pain, exhaustion. You focus on your movement, as in each step. That night, huddled together in a little snow pit, we talked about it, and I knew then that after I`d crossed that point I was going to survive, simply because I wasn`t ready to die.
In 1981, I was invited to go to the Himalayas for the first time. I was 22 and had been invited by the 1982 American Women`s Himalayan expedition. There were eight of us, and we went to climb Ama Dablam in Nepal, which is 20,790 feet.
I learned a lot about myself on that trip. When you are climbing mountains, you are forced to come face to face with yourself. There`s no facade; you can`t hide your true personality. I learned things about myself that I didn`t like, and things I really liked. It gave me a chance to look at myself and figure out what I could be as a person.
When you climb a mountain like that, you establish intermediate camps, about 1,000 feet apart. At each camp, we would have to bring up all of our equipment. Physically it was exhausting, because you don`t just climb straight up, you go back and forth many, many times.
Setting up lines between camps takes time. It`s a yo-yo effect. You climb high, then reach low again, then use that safety line to carry equipment up and down. So it`s a gradual ascent. That was the first time I`d done that, and I had to make myself get up.
That trip was my first encounter with Mt. Everest. I climbed this peak, and there was a mountain it was at that moment I decided I was going to climb Everest.
In 1985, I (learned) a friend of mine had a permit to climb Everest in 1987, and I called him up and said I wanted to go. On that trip, my first attempt on Everest, we got to 26,040 feet. Somewhere between 23,500 feet and the top, we looked up, saw the wind was blowing fairly hard, and decided there was a storm coming in. So we went back to our camp at 23,000 feet.
On this climb, we didn`t use tents; we used snow caves. We were trapped for five days at that elevation, literally entombed in snow.
We had to punch little airholes just to breathe. I kept punching holes in the three-foot walls (of the cave). I remember at one point, one guy was trying to light his Bic lighter and it wouldn`t light. Snow caves are fairly warm, about 30-some degrees. We couldn`t go out because the wind was blowing at 100 miles an hour and there was an 8,000-foot drop just outside the cave.
When it finally stopped snowing, we stepped out and looked up to the top of the mountain and saw incredible wind up there. It was obvious that we couldn`t safely go any higher.
We couldn`t climb further because we`d been at that elevation for too long. At 19,000 feet, human bodies are not capable of regenerating cells. Above that, you are in a constant state of deterioration.
We had worked two years in preparation for that climb, and to be so close to the summit and have to turn back was a very hard decision for us.
One thing that made the 1987 failure worse was that the year before, I had gone through a divorce. I had (hit) bottom, lost self-esteem, confidence, and the idea that I would climb Everest helped me gain back that confidence. But it was a false confidence.
I realized it was false when I had to turn back. The notoriety, the fame didn`t happen and it was pretty devastating. I had to reconsider what I was doing. Did I want fame and glory? Why was that important, when it hadn`t been before?
I said to myself then that if I went back to Everest again, I was going to climb to the top and I didn`t care if I was first, second or third.
On the second trip up Mt. Everest-in 1988-we wanted to climb as quickly as we could, because we wanted to miss the bad weather, so we hired Sherpas to help us carry our load up the mountain.
In 21 days, we established three intermediate camps. I was one of three who were picked (to try for the summit) because we were highest on the mountain and healthy.
On summit day, we had to climb the last 3,000 feet without ropes. as quickly as possible and get back down. The temperature is minus 30.
Between three of us, we had one bottle of oxygen. We drew a lottery, and I got the winning number, so I was to climb to the top alone.
I did not want to go up alone. When my companions turned around to go back down, it took all of my strength and courage not to go back down after them.
When I got to the top, and actually stood on the top, I wanted a friend to hug. I had worked hard for it. It had taken years and a whole team of climbers had worked to get us there.
I only stood there for about 45 minutes. I put out 25 corporate banners-sponsors-at the top and photographed them. Meanwhile, I could see the Tibetan plateau below, and a lot of clouds below me. The wind was blowing very hard. It blew my hat off.
I would not do Everest again. I have to move on, and there are so many mountains in the world.
