by Sue Williams
‘It was wonderful,’ Alyssa says. ‘I was so grateful. We both think lots about giving back and supporting charities when we can, and the gym also sponsors kids’ sports teams. I’ve been lucky to have opportunities in life, and there are a lot of people a lot worse off than us. But it was so great for all these people to come forward and play a part in helping me realise my dream.’
With the funds, the pair booked a winter climbing course for her in New Zealand, where she’d have the chance to learn firsthand about real rock, ice and snow climbing around the country’s highest peak, Mount Cook. Glenn knew this would be the make or break for Everest. Either she’d hate the experience and come back and want to forget all about Everest, or love it – and be even more spurred on to go. He reckoned it was a gamble worth taking.
In addition, he decided the course, in August 2012, would be the first trip Alyssa would make without him. He’d always loved trekking, but had never been into climbing. Besides, if he were to climb with her, he knew he’d be making decisions as her father, rather than on her chances of success. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. Instead, he arranged for a couple of friends who’d been on some of his previous expeditions to accompany her. He wanted to give her, as much as he was able, the experience of climbing mountains without the comfort and reassurance of his presence, as just a taster of what it might be like on Everest with people she didn’t know well.
Alyssa’s grandmother, Carmel Clark, visited for Glenn’s birthday and was taken aback all over again at how mature the fifteen-year-old appeared. She simply couldn’t believe Alyssa’s dedication. ‘I saw her getting up at 4 a.m. to go to the gym,’ she says, ‘and then she’d go back three more times for more sessions! She’s always been a bit of a loner, but now she seemed even more so. She’s not interested in parties or boys; she has too much to do, she says. But then she comes home and plops on the lounge with her iPod like any other kid and is always looking at her phone. But she really isn’t like any other kid at all . . .’
Alyssa is simply raring to go on her next adventure. Nothing, it seems, will put her off. She flies over to Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island with Glenn’s friends Brock Casson and Rob Appleton and they hire a car to drive to the alpine village of Aoraki/Mount Cook. There they meet their climbing instructor and are taken to stay in a mountain hut in the Upper Tasman Glacier area of the Southern Alps. It feels like the middle of nowhere. Every day they go out for seven hours at a time – they tackle ice walls, inch their way up the snowy side of Mount Aylmer at 2699 metres and traverse the Hochstetter Dome at 2827 metres. It has the same kind of atmosphere as the Himalaya, with slabby rock, glaciers and snowfields, only on a significantly more manageable scale.
The idea is to get them used to all the tools they will need to use, and so the trio end up doing a bit of everything. They are getting used to long hours out in the snow, understanding the gear they have, wearing crampons and using ice axes, and learning about avalanche safety and glacier travel and how to stop yourself when you’re falling. For Alyssa it’s physically a lot tougher than trekking. She’s carrying all the clips and the ropes and the carabiners, and her boots are a lot bigger. But she can’t get enough.
When they arrive back at Mount Cook village they do some rock climbing, learning how to rope up with each other, abseiling, decision-making and risk analysis at altitude. Alyssa knows this kind of technical climbing tuition will really help with her mountaineering. One day she might like to try pure rock climbing, when people go out – usually without ropes – to climb sheer rock faces. But that’s a very different discipline. On the mountains, you’re usually weighed down with clothing and equipment and can spend months there. With rock climbing, you’re usually home and dusted and back in your own bed the same day.
Casson, who’s previously been on the Kokoda Track and on the Everest Base Camp trek with Glenn, isn’t sure what to expect of Alyssa. It seems a tough course for anyone, let alone a fifteen-year-old girl. But the first day proves the greatest test. They’re climbing in the mountains and are three-quarters of the way up when a blizzard suddenly hits. It’s snowing, windy, cold and wet, and takes everyone by surprise. Very soon, they’re soaked through and shivering, but still clinging on to the mountainside, inching their way up through the sleet. Alyssa, however, doesn’t falter. She continues climbing slowly, deliberately, without missing a beat. Casson is amazed. After a while, he forgets he’s climbing with a teenage girl and treats her as a complete equal.
The trio spend time practising climbing while roped to each other, setting anchors and belaying for each other, and learning how to understand and predict sudden weather changes – a lesson that might have stood them in even better stead before the blizzard struck. It’s a lot of information to take in at once, but Alyssa seems to be able to absorb it without problems. It’s also pretty uncomfortable – as they climb from the sun into the shade the temperature suddenly plummets, but there isn’t time to adjust any clothing under the coils of rope. They have to put up with being boiling hot one minute under all their gear, and deathly cold the next. Alyssa doesn’t mind. She’s heard it can be exactly the same on Everest on some of the exposed rock faces at different times of day, and welcomes the chance to weather both extremes.
Appleton also notes how well Alyssa seems to be coping. He knows that once you get out in the elements, it’s completely different to the controlled environment of an indoor rock gym. But he’s impressed by how she never complains and just gets on with things. He comes to the conclusion that she’s unique, and that she’s definitely got the mindset to succeed.
Another challenge comes when the three are roped together for a climb. The two men suddenly blanch at the thought of their lives being held in fifteen-year-old hands. But Alyssa seems so switched on, and so confident about using what she’s just learnt, that they both find it easy to trust her, and relax.
When Alyssa flies back to Australia, Glenn meets her at the airport, his heart in his mouth, wondering how she’s found the experience. He doesn’t have to wait for long to find out. One glance at her beaming face tells him. He doesn’t know whether to be pleased or dismayed.
Alyssa had only a week at home before she joined her dad’s next Everest Base Camp trek in November 2012. The days between the two trips were frantic, and she sat up till 2 a.m. most nights to finish her school assignments. They had to be done, she knew, as part of the whole deal. Still, she managed to fit in training at the gym and a couple of long runs. If she missed her training in the morning, she’d catch up at night, even if it meant back-to-back sessions, or stayed up late at night in order to do it. Sometimes she even slept over at the gym so she could exercise at 2 a.m. and then again when she woke up at 5 a.m, sleeping only in between sessions.
The only indulgence she allowed herself was two days off her strict nutritional program, on which she ate only lean proteins and vegetables. She treated herself to muesli with yoghurt and honey for breakfast, her favourite food – tacos – for dinner, and an ice-cream. For most kids her age that would be pretty normal fare.
‘Sometimes it does all feel a bit overwhelming because there’s so much to be done,’ she says. ‘But I’m seeing huge advances in my training, with my endurance, strength, balance and even mindset all improving. It’s exciting to see how strong I can grow, and that keeps motivating me even when things get tough.’
Her collection of motivational quotes was growing daily. They were plastered up everywhere she looked, and flashed up each time she glanced at her phone. They came from a huge variety of places and authors. There was Shakespeare, from Henry VI: ‘Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.’ There was the Roman poet Horace: ‘It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendour. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.’ There was Mahatma Gandhi: ‘Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.’ Basketball star Michael Jordan got a guernsey too: ‘
My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.’ There was even talk show entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey: ‘Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.’ But her favourite was from Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man on the summit of Everest: ‘It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.’
‘I don’t just copy them out, I live by them,’ says Alyssa. ‘We all go through tough times that you think you might not come through. You always have moments where you doubt yourself, and where positivity drains away. Sometimes I struggle to keep positive and I feel alone and that it’s all too hard. But in my heart, I know it’s not and that I’m capable of anything if I’m willing to work hard enough. Quotes like those really help me in times when it all gets too difficult and they help motivate and inspire me.’
The trip to Everest Base Camp comes up almost before she knows it, and she feels her excitement mount. It’s been seven years since she was last in Nepal, and so much has happened in the interim. This time she’ll be making the trek knowing that, hopefully, it will be her last practice run for when she walks to Base Camp again as the start of her assault on Everest.
Knowing that, she wants to perform even better on the trek than she did in 2005, to prove to herself that she’s up to going much further. Most of all, she wants to be at altitude again, to test herself. She decides not to take the pills to prevent altitude sickness until she absolutely has to.
One couple taking part in the six-person trip have met Alyssa before at the gym. When they all arrive in Nepal, however, they can barely believe the difference in her. She completely transforms from a loner they often can’t get two words out of at the gym into someone who talks passionately about Nepal and Base Camp and Everest, and never shuts up. Both Nat and Zac McDermott are amazed. They realise suddenly how much Alyssa knows about Nepal and Everest, and conclude it’s obviously her sole goal in life to get up that mountain.
In Kathmandu, Alyssa celebrates her sixteenth birthday with a dinner at a restaurant popular with climbers, the Northfield Cafe. She can think of nowhere she’d rather be to mark it – except, perhaps, on the top of Everest. The worst part of the trip for her is going to be that flight to Lukla, and the landing on that tiny airstrip. She’s dreading it, but it passes again without incident. Then she allows herself to relax and enjoy the trek, back among her beloved mountains.
It feels so good being back; it’s almost like coming home again. This time, the weather is clearer and she can see Everest from so many places, which she relishes. She keeps gazing over at Everest and thinking, Soon, I’m going to be up there climbing! It seems crazy to her that one tiny idea she had about climbing that mountain has shaped who she is, who she’s become and where she’s going, but every achievement, she realises, starts with a small idea which can then be fanned by hope and nurtured by determination. She considers those who’ve managed to climb to the summit. If they can, then why can’t I? she thinks. What makes them special? She resolves to just climb one step at a time. That’s all she can do.
Also on this trek is Sonia Taylor, who took part in Alyssa’s Kilimanjaro trip. It’s her second Everest Base Camp trek and she’s pleased to see Alyssa again. Although she’s now a year older, Taylor sees that, despite becoming so much more talkative when they arrived in Nepal, she’s still the same girl afterwards: keeping to herself, rarely starting conversations, but politely responding to questions. But with three teenage boys herself, she knows that kids of that age can sometimes be engaging, and other times it’s like pulling teeth.
Most of the time Alyssa’s walking she has her earphones in, listening to music, but when she’s not walking, she writes in her journal and reads books, most notably her much-loved Warrior Training, the book she’s adopted as her major motivator, with its SAS-style training and lessons on mental toughness.
Sometimes she needs it too, as rarely do such treks come without difficulties. By the time the group reaches Namche Bazaar, where she and Glenn had to abandon the rest of their walk the first time back from Base Camp, Alyssa’s started feeling sick and light-headed, and is forced to take the altitude medication. She shrugs, and vows she’ll train even harder back at home in the hope she’ll do better next time. The next day, she gets up and it’s business as usual.
After two days in Namche, they set off again, heading for Tengboche, five to six hours away. The path climbs up to the airstrip at Syangboche that services the Hotel Everest View – the highest hotel in the world at 3880 metres – and provides another fabulous view of Everest. Alyssa feels like she’s seeing an old friend again.
When she can finally tear herself away from the view, the group climb again, then descend into the village of Khumjung to visit Sir Edmund Hillary’s Khumjung School built in the 1960s for the locals as the first big project of his charity, the Himalayan Trust. Alyssa looks in through the classroom windows at the children hunched over their desks and smiles, glad that visitors are giving back to the area. They then all hike back to the main trail for the collection of tea houses and stalls of Sanasa and then on through smaller villages that feel a lot less touristy. With the breathtaking panorama of Everest and peaks like Thamserku, Kwangde Ri and Ama Dablam in front, the track goes down further to the lowest spot in the Khumbu at Phunki Thunga and then climbs again to Tengboche, high on a hill above two rivers, with more glorious views of Everest and neighbouring peaks, including Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world.
Everyone then climbs over stones inscribed with the Buddhist prayer, ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’, to visit the town’s picturesque monastery, adorned with fluttering prayer flags. It is here, Alyssa knows from her reading, that Everest mountaineers stop off on their way to the mountain to light a candle in the hope of a successful, and safe, expedition. It’s also where Tenzing Norgay was once sent to become a monk.
After a night in Tengboche, they walk the five hours to Dingboche, climbing ever higher. Alyssa makes note of the altitude at every stop, mentally checking herself to see how she’s faring. There is the occasional downhill stretch to rest the legs, but the respite never lasts for long. She can feel the altitude having some effect; walking is becoming more difficult and she doesn’t have as much energy. She makes sure she’s drinking plenty of fluids and eating, even though she doesn’t feel like doing either.
They stay two nights in Dingboche, at 4530 metres, and by the time they set out, Alyssa is feeling much better. They are now heading for Lobuche, another five hours away. The last part is always the hardest: up a steep, slippery, muddy climb to the settlement standing at 4940 metres. Here they stay in rooms in a rudimentary stone hut that’s a lot colder and less comfortable than any of their other accommodation so far. But no one minds. Everest Base Camp is so close now, only a day’s walk away. Alyssa doesn’t sleep much. She’s far too excited.
They start off early the next morning for Gorak Shep, a tiny village sitting at an altitude of 5164 metres on the edge of a frozen lakebed, but barely stop to look. They are too intent on reaching Base Camp, between another hour and a half and two and a half hours away, at the daunting altitude of 5364 metres.
Alyssa sets a cracking pace and they reach Base Camp far earlier than they’d imagined. At the first sight of the place she stops dead in her tracks, as awestruck by the sight as she was the first time. It is a chaotic jumble of multi-coloured tents, all grouped on different parts of a stony plateau with a huge variety of flags flapping in the wind around them. Everywhere there are little clusters of trekkers and climbers milling around, dressed in big down jackets, talking, moving into other people’s tents and entering some of the larger tents that Alyssa knows serve as mess halls for the various expeditions.
Yaks stand motionless under staggering mounds of equipment, and Sherpas sit in groups, talking and laughing, holding tin cups of steaming tea. There’s a near-palpable excitement in the thin air. Alyssa hugs herself. She’s conjured up the memory of this sight so many times, but a
ctually being here again is incredible. It’s fascinating to simply stand and watch, and to imagine these people getting ready to go off and climb Everest.
Although you can’t actually see much of Everest from Base Camp, you do see the start of the climb, and the beginning of what’s called the Khumbu Icefall, one of its most dangerous stretches. Alyssa gazes at it, thrilled and mesmerised, knowing the next time she clamps eyes on it, it will be to actually start her own climb. She wonders, yet again, how that will actually feel.
But it’s on the way back from Base Camp, when the group reaches Gorak Shep again, that Alyssa hits her greatest difficulty. It appears she’s contracted a stomach bug from something she’s eaten, and she throws up violently. She quietly goes to bed in the hut where they’re staying without mentioning it to anyone, to try to cope with it herself. But it doesn’t subside and she’s up and down all night long. At one point, Nat McDermott sees Alyssa climb out of her sleeping bag just as the temperature hits -20°, put on her shoes and head off yet again for the toilet – only to find it occupied by someone else. McDermott follows her to check she’s all right, and discovers her trying to open a window to throw up through so she won’t disturb anyone. She feels desperately sorry for the young girl.
But Alyssa takes it all without a murmur of complaint or self-pity. She feels there is nothing to do but accept it as good practice – the same kind of thing could happen on her way to the summit of Everest.
