If you’re hiking up to Sunset Rock and it starts to rain, it’s usually an easy decision to hustle back down. Your biggest worry might be tracking mud from your soggy Merrells into your Subaru.
Stacy Allison, the first North American Woman to climb Mt. Everest.And if you’re 25,000 feet up on one of the world’s deadliest mountains when a storm rolls in, the safe decision might seem even more clear. That is, unless you consider the $250,000 your team raised for the expedition, the two years of planning and the dogged determination that put you up there in the first place.
Under those circumstances in 1987 – 4,000 feet from the top of Mount Everest – climber Stacy Allison learned a lot about herself, mountaineering and life.
“You have to be patient to climb big mountains. You can always come back. The mountain will always be there,” says Allison, who will speak in Chattanooga on Feb. 23. “I’ve just seen it too many times where people aren’t patient and plow through and never come back.”
Allison, who the next year became the first North American woman to climb Everest, and her team had “crystal clear” weather early one day during their assault on the summit. But within 20 minutes, clouds rolled in from the Nepal side of the mountain and the concerned team descended to a snow cave at 23,500 feet.