Thursday, July 29, 2004
Rose, your memory isn't bad at all (or, at least, it agrees with mine!). I think there was, prior to this latest summit, no female alive who had summitted K2. Chantal Mauduit received assistance from EV and company on the descent, and after she visited his tent at base camp to "thank" him, he COMPLAINED about it. Mauduit had a controversial summit of Lhotse but she was an accomplished rock climber and writes of the joy of climbing in "J'habite au Paradis." Wanda Rutkiewicz was the first woman to climb K2 (and survived the descent) but later died on Kanchenjunga. Allison Hargreaves' tour de force on Everest was overshadowed by her death on K2 and the "controversy" of a MOTHER who would risk her life to climb. Julie Tullis and Liliane Barrard are the only other women summiters i can think of (1986), so it has been some time--Heidi Howkins got a book contract out of her attempts, but she really never came close.
