EverestHistory.com:  Alison Hargreaves

British climber, Alison Hargreaves reached celebrity status in 1995 when she became the first women to summit Mount Everest without the aid of Sherpas or bottled oxygen. She was only the second person in history to reach the top of Everest unaided; the first person was Reinhold Messner in 1980. Hargreaves had a goal of climbing the world’s three highest peaks unaided, Everest, K2 and Kanchenjunga.

Alison was a mother of two and began to experience some bad press and double standards just before her Everest climb. Though she had been climbing for years, she had gone fairly unnoticed. Suddenly the climbing community and the press began to question whether it was morally responsible for a mother to leave her small children at home to climb. Her past climbs were also put into question; Alison had climbed Eiger Nordwand in 1988 while she was 6 month pregnant. Her response to this criticism was that she was pregnant, not sick and that she had thought about taking her husband and children with her to base camp, but she feels it’s rather “inhospitable” there. Besides, none of her male climbing partners had brought their young families along for the climb.

Just three months after her successful unaided summit of Mount Everest, Alison was killed after reaching the summit of K2. The climb to the summit took over 12 hours and what had started out as a beautiful clear day ended in the clouds with winds up to 140mph. Six climbers died that day on K2. Alison did become the first women to reach its summit without aid. Her body has never been found.

The following year in 1996, her husband Jim Ballard accompanied by their two children made a pilgrimage to Pakistan to stand in the shadow of K2. Both of Alison’s children have developed an interest in climbing and Jim would like to make it his profession.

 

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