The Girl Who Climbed Everest

by Sue Williams

  The group reaches their first campsite in plenty of time, a clearing surrounded by high trees called Forest Camp, or Mti Mkubwa – ‘big tree’ in the local language, Kiswahili. By the time they arrive, the porters have already unpacked, erected their tents and started cooking dinner. The trekkers sit around a fire drinking ginger tea and eating popcorn, waiting for dinner to be served in the mess tent and listening to the sounds of the rainforest. Alyssa’s happy and relaxed, although she still feels a faint qualm about how she’ll fare at altitude. At the start of the day they walked past a sign warning people to only tackle the climb if they were physically fit, to be aware of tiredness and heart conditions, and to drink four to five litres of fluid a day. Also up there was the ominous instruction: ‘If symptoms of mountain sickness or high altitude diseases persist, please descend immediately and seek medical treatment.’ Alyssa doesn’t sleep well.

  The next morning they rise early, have hot Milo and breakfast and then start walking again. Once the track leaves the forest, it climbs steeply through tall savannah grasses, heather and volcanic rock swathed in lichen, the path crossing a number of small streams. There are fewer and fewer trees due to the decreasing amount of oxygen in the air. As the track reaches higher on the Shira caldera, one of the three historic areas of volcanic activity on Kilimanjaro, the day grows hotter and dustier. Alyssa has a small headache most of the day, but drinks as much water from her supplies as she can, hoping it’s from dehydration rather than the altitude.

  They’re now at about 3600 metres, and up on the top of the Shira ridge spectacular views of Kilimanjaro suddenly unfold. Alyssa immediately feels better. From there, the trail drops gently to the next stop, Shira Camp. That afternoon, as she’s unpacking her gear close to a stream, a bee swoops past her, almost brushing her cheek. ‘That,’ someone tells her, ‘is lucky. It means someone is talking about you, and while it might not be nice, it’s lucky it didn’t sting you . . .’

  Day three is a trek across the Shira Plateau to Shira Two Camp, at 3800 metres. Alyssa notes how the shrubbery is becoming gradually sparser and sparser, until the terrain becomes exposed, giving way to alpine desert. But unlike most treks, when you rarely see your end goal until you’re almost upon it, all day there are stunning views of Kilimanjaro and its summit, Kibo. Alyssa decides she’s in love with Africa, this amazing continent with beautiful mountains in settings so incredibly different from the Himalaya.

  One of the other women on the trek is Ana Ivkosic, who has taken the place of someone who dropped out at the last minute. This is the first time she’s met Alyssa, and she’s staggered by her determination and mental strength. She herself is finding the trek quite intense, but she notes how Alyssa never grumbles and, while she’s not talkative by any stretch of the imagination, she listens to what people say in a way that most teens don’t.

  The night is spent at Barranco Camp, and everyone wakes the next morning to icy temperatures, with all the drink bottles frozen solid. Alyssa shrugs on her cosy pink fleece, ties a scarf around her neck and then warms up with the steep walk uphill to the Lava Tower, a 90 metre-high volcanic plug – formed when magma hardens on an active volcano creating a lava neck – sitting at 4600 metres above sea level. At this spot, lava flows from the three volcanic craters Kibo, Shira and Mawenzi coat the ground, and it’s here the band stops to have lunch. Then there’s a steep descent and a small uphill walk, until finally there’s the long, winding meander down the valley.

  Alyssa walks with her dad at the back of the group, and Cath Beutel is struck by the closeness of their relationship. She feels it’s lovely to see a bond like that between father and daughter, and while she knows they share the same love of adventure and climbing, she can clearly see the mutual love and respect they have for each other too.

  Neither are particularly demonstrative about the affection they feel for each other, but they do form a very tight unit. ‘We’ve always been close and, out of my four children, she’s the only one who’s been interested in walking, fitness and adventures,’ says Glenn. ‘But she’s always been someone who bites off more than she can chew, and then she’ll chew like hell!’

  In turn, Alyssa says her dad is one of her real heroes. ‘I really admire him,’ she says. ‘He’s always believed in me and, ever since I was young, told me and my sisters that our size or the fact we were girls never mattered; we could achieve anything we set our minds and hearts to. He’s always been like that. He’s the person who lifts people up and tries to inspire them to follow their dreams. He got into thinking about positive quotes and mindsets, and he’s made that a big part of who I am, too.

  ‘We do clash at times. We’re both strong personalities and when we want something, we go after it 100 per cent. We’re both pretty stubborn. We’ll argue about decisions, about things we want to do, stuff around the house, the usual things, and disagreements can last awhile sometimes. But he has a great work ethic and perseverance, and they’re things I try to copy. He’s always passionate about what he does, which really inspires me.’

  Day five is a much easier four-hour, fifteen-minute walk, but it does include the one and a half hour trek up the Barranco Wall, with a scramble on hands and feet at the end. Alyssa’s been particularly looking forward to that, and enjoys the sudden rush. She still has a small headache though, and later in the afternoon starts feeling sick. As the group moves down to the Karanga Valley campsite, beneath the icefalls of the Heim, Kersten and Decken glaciers, she secretly worries she might not be okay for the summit. But she hides it well.

  Day six is the one she’s really looking forward to. Everyone is woken at 4 a.m. and they start at 5.15 with a three-hour walk, first uphill and then down into a long valley, before descending to Barafu Camp on a small, flat, exposed area on the ridge. It’s quite bleak and icy but they have an early lunch, then try to sleep for three hours until dinner. After that meal they rest again, then get up at 11 p.m., have some Milo and start their ascent to the summit, the Kibo Crater.

  It’s a long, slow shuffle in the dark with their head torches lighting the way on the mountain. Everyone struggles to breathe, although the guides don’t seem to be troubled at all by the fact that, at that height, every breath contains 50 per cent less oxygen. Instead, they continually sing to the group to keep them going as they trek along lots of switchbacks, between the Rebmann and Ratzel glaciers. It’s pretty hard going. Alyssa feels like she’s experiencing some altitude sickness; eating is difficult and she feels full all the time. She also feels dizzy and nauseous, as if she wants to vomit – but her body won’t let her.

  Others in the group have no idea she’s feeling under par. She hasn’t mentioned, or shown, that she’s having even the slightest difficulty. Glenn, however, knows his daughter well, and realises she’s doing it tough. An hour on, her head is by now throbbing in pain, her breath is rasping in her chest, and the air feels so thin, every gasp hurts. At any moment she feels she might throw up and collapse in a heap on the rocky ground.

  Walking beside her, Glenn pauses. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks her worriedly. ‘Do you want to stop?’

  In some ways, yes, she wants to stop more than anything else in the world. She wants to stop climbing ever higher, to where she knows she’ll have to work even harder for every breath, to where the tightness across her temples will clamp itself like an iron fist and squeeze until she’ll be blinded by the light, to where every step will feel like she has a tonne of lead tied to each foot.

  But she looks up at him, summons all her strength and smiles. ‘No, Dad,’ she replies, as evenly as she can. ‘I’m good.’

  She knows if she doesn’t beat Kilimanjaro, she won’t be allowed to go on to try for the roof of the world.

  Her dad, however, doesn’t look convinced. ‘You look like you’re going to be sick,’ he tells her. ‘You’re incredibly pale.’ She nods, mutely, but continues walking. He sighs. ‘Okay, then,’ he says. ‘If you want to carry on, be sick and then let’s get on. We don’t have much time.�
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  Alyssa nods again. Although the climb is proving a massive challenge, she’s worked too hard and dreamt too long about conquering such peaks in training for Everest to stop.

  Five hours later, the group hits the first milestone, Stella Point at the crater rim at 5730 metres. They all shout and high-five each other and hug, then sit down for a rest. It strikes Alyssa that they may have been celebrating a touch too soon – it’s still another hour to the actual summit. She steels herself for the last big push, and discovers it’s extremely tough going. Her fingers feel frozen and they sting like hell but she tries hard to think of other things. This last stretch is proving the hardest trek she’s ever done.

  Finally, at about 6.30 a.m. on 1 July 2011, the group scuffles up to the true summit and a big wooden sign: ‘Congratulations! You are now at Uhuru Peak, Tanzania, 5895 metres, Africa’s highest point, world’s highest free-standing mountain.’ They reach it just as the sun is rising in a glorious orange haze, slowly lighting the peak and the wide green savannah below.

  Alyssa stands and marvels as the view slowly comes into focus out of the darkness, knowing it was well worth the struggle. Up there, it certainly does feel exactly like its nickname, ‘the roof of Africa’. She sits down with the rest of the group to watch the sunrise. She’s tired and feels emotional, and has a headache, but she’s too happy to care. She poses with her dad, and then the guides, for a few photos, and everyone else takes photos too. She’s thrilled to have climbed to the top of her second of the Seven Summits. She can hardly believe it.

  Alyssa phones her mum from the summit on Glenn’s satellite phone. Therese is amazed she’s been able to phone from the summit of Kilimanjaro – especially when she can’t even get mobile phone coverage in Target in Toowoomba – but is delighted to hear from her, and relieved. She’s happy her daughter sounds so happy, but immediately suspects this won’t be the end of the adventures.

  After half an hour on the top, the group then walk the three hours back down to Barafu, have a short sleep, then have lunch before descending to Mweka Hut and receiving their certificates to show they made it.

  As the group is walking out that afternoon, Alyssa sidles up to Glenn. ‘Dad,’ she says. ‘I want to talk to you about something.’

  He looks at her, not having any idea what might be coming up. ‘Yes, Alyssa?’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘Last year, I heard you say something, and I wondered if you meant it.’ She pauses and he nods, urging her to go on. ‘Well, I heard you giving a speech to a group and you were saying how they should encourage kids to do adventurous things.’

  Glenn steals a look at her. He now has a feeling he knows what she’s going to say. She doesn’t look at him.

  ‘You said that if I ever wanted to climb Everest, you’d support me. You wouldn’t want me to do it, but you would fully support me if I wanted to enough. You said how kids could sometimes have big dreams, and it was up to parents to help them come true . . .’

  He grins at her. He knew this day might come, but he didn’t expect his own words to be quoted back at him, or for it to come so soon. Everest was a big mountain for such a little girl, but hell, he couldn’t fault her determination, nor her commitment. She battled sickness up there, but still carried on. He nods.

  ‘It’ll be a lot of hard work and training and money,’ he says finally. ‘You’ll also have to climb other mountains first to make sure you’re up to it. But yes, if you still want to do it in a couple of years, I’ll do everything I can to help.’

  Her face immediately lights up and she whoops with delight. He laughs to see her so animated.

  ‘Thanks, Dad!’ she says. ‘That’s great. I can’t wait!’ And then she speeds off, already trying to work out what’s likely to be the earliest year she’ll be allowed to try.

  CHAPTER 14

  Everest’s First Australian Woman:

  Brigitte Muir

  Twenty-two years earlier, Australian climber Brigitte Muir was, like Alyssa Azar, climbing Kilimanjaro, also as her second of the Seven Summits. She’d previously climbed Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America, and she too dreamt of one day climbing Everest. Eight years later, at the age of thirty-eight, she became the first Australian female ever to summit, after four dramatic attempts.

  Her first in 1995 she called off at 8200 metres because her husband and climbing partner, Jon Muir, fell ill. On her second try, shortly afterwards, she was close to the top but was abandoned by her two climbing partners when she stopped to change the batteries in her failing head torch. Unable to see in the dark, she was forced to wait till sunrise to make a move – by which time she didn’t have enough oxygen to reach the summit and get back down again.

  She returned in 1996, that terrible year on Everest when eleven people lost their lives in a single night, caught by cataclysmic weather conditions. She’d been sitting in camp waiting it out, hoping for a break in the storms when the news came from higher up of a disaster of epic proportions.

  But in May the next year, 1997, she finally stood on top of the world, becoming not only the first Australian woman there, but also the first Australian – male or female – to have successfully climbed each of the Seven Summits. But the joy of her triumph didn’t last long. She very nearly didn’t make it back again after a severe attack of bronchitis on the mountainside, complete exhaustion and ‘an eternity of suffering’.

  Yet today, she wants only to encourage Alyssa in her quest. ‘I’m very supportive of any person who wants to get out there and challenge themselves and inspire others to follow their heart,’ she says. ‘I’ve always believed it’s important to live our dreams, rather than dream our lives. But you always have to go into such things with both eyes, and your heart, open.

  ‘People tend to learn what they need to learn on big mountains. Alyssa’s climbed other mountains, so she’s been keen to put in the time to develop her experience and gut instincts about what’s right and wrong. You can’t always follow your guide on places like Everest. It’s always important to trust yourself.’

  Alyssa is a long-time fan of Muir. ‘She attempted Everest a few times, but when she didn’t succeed she just kept on going,’ says Alyssa. ‘That really resounded with me, especially since she is a woman. She’s a great example for me to follow.’

  Muir grew up in Belgium, where she discovered caving as a teenager and fell in love with outdoor adventures. She moved to Australia in 1983, and in 1988 began her own quest to climb each continent’s highest mountain. She says she simply loves pushing herself, hearing the crunch of snow beneath her feet and the feeling of achievement when she reaches a summit and successfully comes down again.

  Now based in western Victoria, she doesn’t climb mountains any more, choosing to challenge herself in different ways: motivational speaking, painting, writing, making documentaries and raising funds for charity.

  ‘I’d been climbing mountains for thirty years and seen a lot of friends die,’ she says. ‘Then in 1999 I went to Makalu, the fifth highest mountain in the world, close to Everest, and a very good friend of mine, Danish climber Michael Joergensen, died coming down from the summit. After that I couldn’t get back on the mountain. I’d loved mountains since I was a little girl, but I’d achieved my personal goals and wasn’t learning any more. I didn’t need to challenge myself on big mountains. I needed to move on to something completely different.

  ‘Alyssa is only young, but I don’t think wisdom has an age. It’s important she listens to her body, especially at altitude. I don’t think anyone really gets into their stride with altitude until their late thirties or forties. When I first started climbing, I’d get headaches and would have to go down. But after doing that, my body would remember what it was like to be at high altitude and would switch on. You just have to be very patient out there.’

  She believes Alyssa’s age will put her at a disadvantage as far as stamina is concerned. In all Muir’s years of mountain climbing, she’s discovered that older
people often fare much better than the young. ‘A lot of younger people burn out quickly,’ she says. ‘That’s also a good lesson to learn with patience. High altitude is a waiting game and it can be as tedious as watching paint dry. You get cold and tired and fed up.

  ‘But you have to learn to live in the moment, look at the beauty around you, watch the incredible sunrises and sunsets on the mountain and feel a part of them, and appreciate everything around you. Everest is a very dangerous place, but it’s also a very beautiful one. It’s very special.’

  Her words strike a real chord with Alyssa. Making four attempts on the summit is a wonderful example of the kind of determination that is sometimes necessary to achieve such a worthwhile goal. And to hear Muir talking about taking the time to drink in the beauty of Everest makes her yearn even harder for the Himalayas. She wants so much to be back there, looking up at Everest, it actually physically hurts.

  CHAPTER 15

  Setting the Goal

  ‘Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.’

  – FRANZ KAFKA

  When Alyssa Azar arrived back in Australia from Kilimanjaro in July 2011, her mind was made up. She was still only fourteen, but she now knew with more clarity than she’d ever known anything that Everest was in her sights. Everything, from here on in, would be focused on getting to the top of the highest mountain in the world.

  ‘I loved that whole experience of Kilimanjaro,’ says Alyssa. ‘I loved Africa and it was great to be having another adventure on a whole new continent. I loved those mountains. The mornings were always cold and dusty and the people were so friendly and gorgeous. They were amazing, and it was a great experience.