View as PDF » • View article at NYTimes.com »In the 50 years since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first conquered Mount Everest on May 29, 1953, more than 1,650 climbers have stood atop the world's highest peak. Eighty-nine people did it in one day alone, May 23, 2001. (The total for that year was 182.)
Nonetheless, surmounting Everest's 29,035 feet remains one of the great mythic achievements, an undisputable display of skill and courage against ice and rock, bottomless chasms, body-numbing temperatures and tent-shredding winds, all in an oxygen-deprived danger zone five and a half miles up in Nepal. Whatever the numbers, this is an elite group...
SUSAN ERSHLER
Sales Director, Seattle
Reached the summit on May 16, 2002
Sue Ershler's husband, Phil, is a professional mountain guide. But Ms. Ershler, a 47-year-old executive with Kinko's in Seattle, is not exactly a slouch herself. She got hooked on climbing in the early 90's, shortly after the two met (they married in 1996), and since then has, like Mr. Porzak, also become a Seven Summiteer.
Everest was the last of the seven, and as with the others, her husband was there, too, making them the first married couple in that club. "Phil and I were together constantly," she said of the Everest ascent, "and it was a beautiful sunny day when we got to the top. To see that view with someone you really care about is almost indescribable."
...She's climbed to the top of more than 30 mountains of 14,000 feet or more...
Ms. Ershler speaks in upbeat tones, but like most people who reach the top of Everest she worked hard to get there, spending years mastering the rock and ice climbing skills and equipment such an endeavor requires and putting in her time at extreme altitudes, over 24,000 feet. She's climbed to the top of more than 30 mountains of 14,000 feet or more, and in the year leading up to her triumph, she spent nearly every weekday running and lifting weights and every weekend hiking the highest nearby trails. A year before their successful ascent, in fact, the Ershlers were also on Everest, and came very close to the top, 27,600 feet, when Mr. Ershler's eyes began to freeze, forcing them to turn back. "Two members of our group did stand on top, so that was great," she said of the 2001 trip, "but it was tough from an individual point of view."
With all seven summits behind her, Ms. Ershler said, "Right now I'm just working." She still loves the thrill of climbing, she said, but does not miss the hardships, including the constant thin-air headaches that make sleeping difficult.
"Two and a half months is a long time to be uncomfortable," she said, referring to the time an assault on the world's highest mountain usually takes. "When I go up Mount Rainier, I know I'm going to be back home in a shower soon."
ALEX WARD is an editor of special sections for The Times