The Girl Who Climbed Everest

by Sue Williams

  ‘I loved to hear about all the different people who’d go on his expeditions,’ Alyssa says. ‘He’d tell me both the good stories and the bad, probably to try to turn me off ever wanting to go! He’d talk about the people who don’t prepare properly and obviously pay the price over there and regret it, as well as the people who do really well. I guess that’s where my mentality started to come from. I always told myself I wanted to train really hard because I’d heard of people who didn’t and didn’t achieve what they wanted to, and regretted it big time.’

  By the time Alyssa celebrated her seventh birthday, she’d grown wilier about arguing her corner. Glenn loved inspirational quotes and would pin his favourites up around the house to keep himself motivated. One day when he told Alyssa that she was just too small to go to Kokoda, her jaw firmed and her head went up. ‘Dad, you’re always telling me we’re not too small to do anything,’ she countered. ‘How can you now say different to me about this?’

  Glenn laughed; it was a fair call. So when he returned from his next Kokoda trip, and she started asking again if she could come on another he had planned, he was finally more conciliatory. ‘Okay, Alyssa,’ he told her, ‘I’ll take you next year under one condition: I’m going to set you a training program and even when I’m away, even in the middle of winter, you’ve got to go out walking. If it’s raining or it’s 4°, that doesn’t matter. If you miss even one training session out of a minimum of three every week, I’m not going to take you because it says to me that you don’t really want to do it. When I’m away, I’ll arrange for a friend to take you. But miss one, and it’s over.’

  His daughter grinned back at him, nodding enthusiastically. She had absolutely no idea that he’d set the bar deliberately high, thinking there was no way she’d be able to reach it. ‘I’ll be honest,’ says Glenn. ‘I did that because I was certain she’d miss at least one training session. I thought she’d do it for a month and then after that she’d have had enough of it and drop out. I had no idea how determined she really was . . .’

  For at least three days every week, and usually more, Alyssa went out walking to complete her training regimen. In a year, she never missed a single day. By the time twelve months was over, Glenn was forced to admit defeat. Therese was appalled; Alyssa was ecstatic.

  The expedition company Glenn ran the trips for had one setting out soon after this, so he organised a separate side trek for himself, Alyssa, Andrew Mills and Mills’ then girlfriend, Sandy Paterson, as he was worried his daughter wouldn’t be able to keep up with all the adults. The four would camp with the others but walk by themselves, just in case. Therese wasn’t keen, and didn’t want to encourage her daughter at all, but on the other hand, she tried to be supportive, knowing how determined Alyssa was. ‘She eventually came to terms with it,’ Alyssa says. ‘But she wasn’t thrilled about it.’

  Alyssa shared the news about her upcoming trek with her mates at school and they took it in their stride. Nothing surprised them about Alyssa. They knew she went off walking all the time and had privately marvelled at her determination. ‘We knew how much she was training for that trek and I think a few of us thought she was crazy for putting so much effort into it,’ says Hannah Mason. ‘We were all about seven or eight, and at that age you don’t usually have any motivation for anything other than having fun with your friends. None of us would have been prepared to put anything like that amount of time into anything and miss out on the fun stuff, like the Saturday cartoons.’

  Glenn and Therese had brought Alyssa up with the philosophy of giving back to the community where possible, and they talked to Alyssa about trying to raise funds with her trek for a suitable charity. She was enthusiastic and the three came up with the idea of nominating the Toowoomba Hospital children’s appeal. That instantly created more publicity for her quest, too, and support came from some unexpected quarters. Four-time world light welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu even visited Toowoomba for a fundraising dinner for the hospital organised by Glenn, and spoke at the function, showing clips of various fights throughout his career, holding a Q&A session and then presiding over a silent memorabilia auction.

  The local newspaper heard an eight-year-old girl was about to take part in one of the toughest endurance tests known to humankind, and ran a couple of stories. Others followed. A news crew from the TV station turned up at her school and interviewed her. ‘I remember watching her with everyone else through the classroom windows with the TV camera on her,’ says Mason. ‘We all thought what she was doing was incredibly exciting, although we never quite understood what exactly it was she was doing!

  ‘We talked about it, but none of us appreciated what a huge challenge it was. We had a class photo with Alyssa, and we all held up a banner saying, “Good Luck, Alyssa!” I think a few people were a bit jealous of her as she was going to be doing something so exciting, and she was getting all this attention, and the rest of us were still stuck at school. But she never boasted. She was just always excited about what was coming, and so focused on making it happen.’

  The stories in the media about an eight-year-old going off to do Kokoda and, in addition, raising funds for the local hospital caused a sensation in the community. Her mum’s workmates bailed her up: surely she wasn’t really prepared to countenance her daughter doing such a thing? ‘I would just cringe,’ Therese says. ‘Of course I was proud of her and wanted to support her, but people were saying, Are you sure that’s something an eight-year-old should be doing? But they didn’t know her.

  ‘We put a lot of support in place and if she wanted to change her mind she could, and there was medical help there too. But a lot of people said negative things at the time.’

  Glenn was having a hard time too. A few people accused him of trying to live through his daughter. He reacted angrily: by now he’d completed ten Kokoda treks of his own, so where was the personal satisfaction for him in dragging Alyssa along? The Toowoomba newspaper ran a poll on its opinion page, asking readers if they felt he was being irresponsible in taking his young daughter to Kokoda. ‘I watched that paper for a week, but no one wrote in to say yes,’ Glenn says. ‘I thought that was pretty cool.

  ‘But I knew that if something happened to her, that would be the worst thing ever, and that would be tough to live with. I would live with it forever, and part of me would always think, Did I do the right thing or not?’

  In the meantime, he did everything he could think of to ensure Alyssa’s safety. He put in extra days as a precaution, running the expedition over sixteen days rather than the normal eight or nine. He tried to work out what he could do if she wanted to drop out. His contingency planning included being prepared to carry Alyssa if she didn’t want to continue or injured herself, and his mates carrying her to safety if anything happened to him. He was sure he’d thought of everything.

  In the event, it turned out he hadn’t.

  CHAPTER 3

  On the Track

  The little group sets out in August 2005 on their flight to Papua New Guinea, ready to tackle the world-renowned Kokoda Track.

  Eight-year-old Alyssa Azar is excited, but nervous. As the plane touches down in the capital, Port Moresby, she stares out of the window, her heart thumping. On the ground, there’s a flurry of activity; inside the plane there’s a noticeable frisson. Among the Australian passengers there are oil workers, copper- and gold-mining personnel and aid workers, as well as the band of Kokoda trekkers.

  Not many others choose to visit the place that’s been ranked number 139 on the 140-long list of the world’s least liveable cities, only just nudging out Dhaka in Bangladesh. For most, it’s merely a stopping-off point to anywhere else.

  Alyssa, her dad, Andrew Mills and Sandy Paterson stay in a hotel within a security compound in Port Moresby – absolutely necessary in a city well known for its violent crime, carjacking and muggings – as they prepare to head out to the start of the Kokoda Track. The night before they’re due to leave, a man of about sixty from another trekking
group approaches Glenn and Alyssa in the hotel foyer.

  ‘Hey, mate!’ he says to Glenn, in a tone of voice that doesn’t sound at all friendly. ‘This girl . . .’ he gestures at Alyssa, ‘I’ve heard you’re taking her to Kokoda.’

  Glenn nods. He’s not sure what’s coming.

  ‘Well,’ the man snarls. ‘You’re joking if you think she’ll make it!’

  Glenn smiles genially back at him and ushers Alyssa back to their room, hoping she didn’t hear or, if she did, that she didn’t understand. But as soon as the door’s closed, she looks up at him.

  ‘Why do people think I can’t make it?’ she asks, baffled.

  He realises then, for the first time, that the possibility she might fail hasn’t even crossed her mind.

  He tells her that in life you often find people judge you and put their limitations onto you. That man might be nervous about making the trek himself, and feeling anxious that he mightn’t make it. In those circumstances, he would obviously feel pretty threatened by the sight of an eight-year-old girl who’s about to try it too. Glenn tells her not to take any notice of it, or to use it as a motivation to succeed. She seems to really take that to heart.

  The Kokoda Track has certainly never been for the faint-hearted. A single path running 96 km across brutally challenging terrain, it climbs up and down the Owen Stanley Range, through thick jungle, across raging rivers and up and down steep steps. Its highest point is 2190 metres, as it passes by the peak of Mount Bellamy. The track is usually submerged in mud from days of torrential rainfall, and the days tend to be hot and humid, around a constant 30° C in August and September, with thunderstorms, drizzle and rain. By contrast, the nights can be bitterly cold.

  At every stage, it evokes memories of the series of brutal World War II battles fought between the young, inexperienced, hopelessly outnumbered Australian soldiers and the Japanese troops who were trying to secure Port Moresby to isolate Australia from the US and use it as a base for a possible incursion into Australia. More than 600 Australians lost their lives on the track during some of the bloodiest clashes of the Pacific War, and the battle sites are remarkably well preserved, with weapon pits and relics from each side still remaining. It’s easy along the route to imagine the intense hardship both sides faced in such horrendously hostile terrain.

  As the group fly out of Port Moresby over the series of emerald-green thicketed ridges to Kokoda and the start of the track, following the direction of the original battle in 1942, their mood is sombre. On landing thirty minutes later, they wander over to the War Museum and look at the hospital and memorial sites. And then, finally, they begin their march.

  Alyssa has learnt all about the history of Kokoda beforehand, so actually being there and seeing where all those things happened makes it very special for her. It is touching to hear those stories again, and see where the soldiers had to walk. It feels amazing to be there, treading in their footsteps.

  But she’s very nervous. She knows the first day is the toughest, because your body has to get straight into the rhythm of getting used to it. That first day will also be very hot.

  It doesn’t help either that, at Kokoda Village at the start, all the local kids come out to see Alyssa and take her to a field and insist on playing soccer with her for over an hour. By the time she begins walking again, and hits the next village, she’s wilting. Glenn starts to worry he’s made a bad decision in letting her come along, and asks her if she’d prefer to return to Kokoda Village and fly home from there.

  ‘If you want to turn back, we can,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to go through with this.’

  Alyssa looks up at him. ‘I’m not going back,’ she declares. ‘As if that’s going to happen!’ And then she storms off up the path.

  But she is finding it difficult. The sun is beating down and she has to trek all day long. ‘Oh my God!’ she thinks somewhere in the back of her mind. ‘I’ve got eight to nine days of this to go!’ But she is determined to keep pushing through it, and after a few days she gets used to that rhythm of trekking all day, camping at night, getting up in the morning, then doing it all again. And after that she never looks back.

  There are twenty people on the main expedition and a few of those look askance at Alyssa when they first notice her. Glenn holds back with her and his two mates, however, to avoid getting in their way. He’s not sure how fast she’ll be able to walk and is eager not to delay anyone or put them off their own trek, so for that reason has scheduled extra days to do the trip. He also wants to monitor Alyssa closely and see how well she’s holding up in the conditions. It’s difficult, though, to keep quiet the fact that there’s an eight-year-old western girl attempting the Kokoda Track. The news she’s there is spreading quickly all the way up the track, through all the villages and among the other trekkers on the mountain.

  Alyssa is off in her own little world and doesn’t really realise she’s anything special. She doesn’t think that she is different to anyone else doing the track because in order to do it, her dad has treated her exactly the same as everyone else. He’s told her she isn’t special, that if this is something she wants to do she’ll have to have the same standards as any twenty- or thirty-year-old had, as it is the same goal they are trying to achieve. So in the beginning she has the mentality that she is one of them.

  The first reaction to strike her is the behaviour of the villagers along the way. Many have never seen a little white kid before, and are plainly fascinated. Many stand and stare, open-mouthed, then gather their courage to approach her. As she stands patiently smiling before them, they touch her blonde hair and her face in wonderment. She thinks it’s a little freaky until she gets used to it. A lot of the little kids are scared of Alyssa. Walking out of one village, she turns around and there is a whole group of them staring at her. She waves and they all wave back.

  The day she first tries out a few words of the local creole language, Tok Pisin, derived from the phrase ‘talk pidgin’, the screams of local surprise – then laughter – can be heard kilometres down the track. Clearly, they find the sight of a little white Australian girl attempting to speak in their tongue so bizarre, it is absolutely hilarious.

  On the second day, Alyssa and Glenn visit the Isurava Memorial, a significant battle site that was only uncovered five years ago. Next is the walk along the high ridge into Eora Creek. Glenn keeps an eye on his daughter, but she still seems to be managing well. She takes him completely by surprise with her question about Everest, but he soon dismisses that from his mind. He knows her biggest test will be on the fourth day: the climb to the top of Mount Bellamy. She’ll have to focus all her energy on that

  Alyssa is not sure how she’ll fare either. Physically, it’s the worst part of the trip. It’s around the middle of the track and it’s the highest point. There are some steps to assist trekkers, but they’re big for an eight-year-old. The porters have carved her a stick with her name on it, and she uses that to help get herself up. Alyssa makes it, and she enjoys it, and the view from the top is incredible. She doesn’t realise it at the time, but it’s the start of her love of climbing mountains. That first summit becomes the moment that changes her life forever. Standing at the highest point, gazing out at the view and feeling on top of the world, she knows this won’t be the last mountain she wants to summit. It’s going to be simply the first, hopefully of many.

  Another highlight is meeting a ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel’ – one of the PNG locals who escorted and helped injured Aussie soldiers down the track – in Naduri Village. Again, she causes a sensation, with people as keen to have their photograph taken with her as she is to have hers taken with them. It provides some light relief as the going becomes harder still, with mosquitoes, dirt trails stubbed with tree roots, branches giving way to mud, and river crossings with narrow wooden walkways that look frighteningly delicate. But still she seems totally unperturbed by the difficulties.

  Glenn says he’s accounted for all eventualities – except the one where she’d do so
well. The hardest single thing for her, he thinks, is that the adults would sit down for half an hour to have a break, and five or ten minutes into that break she’d be doing cartwheels and saying, Are we going yet? What have we stopped for? Kids recover so quickly. It’s easy to keep her entertained in the villages with the other kids, but the boredom would set in at any time they stopped. Alyssa can’t really tell the time so Glenn would string it out. She’d ask, How long have we got to go? And he’d tell her ten minutes, five minutes . . . and they’d sit for twenty minutes and then get going.

  Andrew and Sandra walk ahead and Glenn and Alyssa walk behind, at a little distance. Mills notices what a close bond father and daughter have. At one point he also notices that Alyssa is a little teary. Glenn tells them she’s missing her mum. It’s something Alyssa today doesn’t remember.

  Later in the day, she’s regained her composure and sidles up to Glenn and gives him a big smile.

  ‘Dad, what do you think our next challenge will be?’ she asks him.

  He sighs. Suddenly this doesn’t seem like it will be the first and last. He puts a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Alyssa, how about we just get through this one?’ he says. ‘Then we’ll think about it . . .’

  For the real killer of this trip, he knows, is yet to come: the Nine False Peaks of the Maguli Range – nine hills that each beckon as though they’re the crest, until they’re climbed and another one appears just beyond.

  But again, Alyssa rises apparently effortlessly to the challenge, and she and Glenn finally make it to the end of the track, Owers Corner, on the eighth day – eight days ahead of what he’s allowed for. Alyssa walks through the memorial arch, shakes hands with the porters, takes some photos and poses for a few more. She has a huge feeling of achievement, and is so proud and relieved to have made it.