While all the world was so raptly following the spine-chilling, brain-numbing rivalry between figure skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan last spring, there was another, largely overlooked rivalry afoot that I found far more fascinating.
Also featured on the “Today” show, it pitted glamoroso New York socialite Sandy Pittman, the 38-year-old wife of Bob Pittman, the MTV creator (and one-time WMAQ-radio programming whiz in Chicago), against Dolly Lefever, a 47-year-old Alaskan nurse-midwife, in a mountaineering duel to see which of them could climb the highest peak on every continent on the planet first.
This included 29,028-foot Mt. Everest-a greater challenge even than Tonya faced in keeping out of the slammer, or poor, dear, whiny Nancy did in enduring the terrible ordeal of that Walt Disney Mickey Mouse parade.
Sandy’s sponsor (Vaseline) and PR firm pitched the deal as an epochal event: The beauteous Pittman would attempt to become the first American woman in the history of the universe to climb the Seven Summits, climaxing with her conquering Everest sometime this last May.
She had earlier climbed the tallest peaks of the six continents other than Asia, including North America’s mighty Mt. McKinley (20,320 feet) and Australia’s not so mighty Mt. Kosciusko (7,310 feet). Her 1993 try at Everest failed because of bad weather.
The most interesting thing about this affair is that Sandy’s pitchmen failed to realize that Dolly-who has no PR firm or Vaseline sponsor but 15 years of mountaineering experience-had already done it!
She scaled Everest in 1993. On March 11 this year-a good two months before “Today” went ga-ga over Sandy-Dolly conquered her seventh and final peak, more or less strolling up Kosciusko on her way back from climbing Antarctica’s Vinson Massif (16,864).
“I did it just to thwart Sandy Pittman,” said Dolly in an interview from Anchorage.
Worse, as Outside Magazine mountaineering columnist Paul Kvinta noted in the magazine’s May issue, France’s Christine Janin already had become the first woman from any country to conquer the Seven Summits, back in 1991.
But Sandy’s exciting Everest reports aired on “Today” anyway, right up there with Martha Stewart’s mushroom recipes and Katie Couric’s historic chats with the president.
“The Seven Summit thing wasn’t that important to me,” said Sandy in an interview from her pricey New York pad. “I just saw it as a good way to focus on what we were trying to do on Everest.”
Presumably, they were trying to reach the top. The second most interesting thing about all this is that Sandy’s conquest of Everest was once again a flopperoo. She never got out of base camp, and no one in her party made it past Camp II.
“There was an avalanche that came pretty close to the trail,” she said. “I didn’t think twice when they decided against going any further.”
“Sandy’s what we call a guided climber,” said Dolly.
The third most fascinating thing about this is that Sandy is considered to be one of New York’s very best climbers, to employ an unfortunately cynical social use of the term.
Sandy’s at simply every Upper East Side soiree, fun Hamptons romp and upscale charity bash worth attending. She gets her picture in the society magazines and columns with just as much regularity as Blaine Trump, wife of Donald Trump’s little brother; and more so, nowadays, than New Orleans restaurant hostess turned society queen Gayfryd Steinberg, Indiana switchboard operator turned society queen Georgette Mosbacher and Chicago flight attendant turned society queen (and big-bucks babe) Susan Gutfreund.
Will the rivalry continue? Will Sandy make another try for Everest? Will she look for an undiscovered continent with a mountain on it?
“My inclination is to say that I’m very satisfied with what we did on Everest,” she said. “But I would like to make it to the top someday.”
Would Dolly like to try her hand at the kind of ascents that challenge Sandy and her socially active chums every day in posh places like the Carlyle Hotel?
“No thank you,” Dolly said.
Chicken.
