This training process started with some exercises to stabilize my muscles, joints, and ligaments and with two sessions per week of strength in a gym (squats, deadlifts, abs, pull-ups, and push-ups). Strangely, I trusted to being in the right place at the right time.įor Everest and K2, I used the same training process that we prepared with my coach, Cesar Aulestia. I just focused on the climb and enjoyed being there. Once I decided to go and was committed to being under the serac, I stopped thinking about danger, death, or negative things. It took me some time to meditate before the trip to determine if I really wanted to assume so much risk. What was your experience in K2’s infamous Bottleneck, the couloir at almost 27,000 feet where ice chunks fall from the serac, or ice wall, above?īefore the climb, I was horrified and doubtful if going there was a good idea. In contrast, on the last steps before the summit of Everest, I almost couldn’t talk and felt drunk.Īlaska’s First Via Ferrata Is an Epic Climb in Untouched Territory Read article Undoubtedly, on K2 I was tired, especially because I was sick with stomach problems, but I was clear in my mind. Physically, the lack of oxygen, the tiredness, and the deterioration of skills was strongest on Everest. On K2 in the Karakoram, the terrain is more technical, and the weather and snow conditions are more variable than in the Himalaya. All of the routes on K2 are much more exposed to objective hazards than Everest’s normal route on the North Side (which is the route I chose to climb in 2016). To climb Everest without O2 was physically much harder than K2. People who have climbed 8,000-meter peaks without O2 say that in the world there are 13 mountains of 8,000 meters and one “9,000-meter” peak-and they are right. Everest is simply the highest, and that means the physical aspect of climbing it without O2 defies what is possible for the human body. K2 is the quintessential tough mountain in terms of hazards and technicality. How would you compare climbing K2 with no Os to doing Everest with no Os?īoth mountains are the culmination of different aspects of mountaineering. I fell in love with the experience and exploring this amazing playground with my sister. When I was 4 years old, he brought me to climb an easy 14,000-foot volcano in Ecuador, and I just loved it. My climbs show that you can be good at something without trying to follow dogmas or social rules. I have received messages from women who are grateful because they feel that my climbs broke the paradigm that marks success as being a bomb of Latin sensuality. I feel that this kind of feat helps show others that discipline and dedication pay off and that our options are unlimited-especially for women who, in a lot of cases, were raised thinking that the only option is getting married really young and raising a family without exploring your abilities and dreams. In Latin America, I have received only love and positivity from people. It is a great honor and responsibility to be the first woman from the Americas to accomplish this. You are the first woman from the Americas to climb both Everest and K2 with no Os. “I felt like the mountain received us with open arms,” recalls Perez.Ī Cleanup Operation Has Removed Tons of Trash and Dead Bodies From Mount Everest Read article The team got lucky when a wind event cleared the snow en route to the summit. Perez, who was climbing with Adrian Ballinger and supported by her life partner Esteban “Topo” Mena, Palden Namgye, and Pemba Gelje Sherpa (all on oxygen), waited out the weather. Ninety percent of the teams turned around due to record snowfall causing high avalanche danger. This year was a difficult season on K2, the second-tallest mountain in the world. Nearly 9,000 people have summited Everest, yet only seven have been women without supplemental oxygen. A guide for Tahoe-based AlpenGlow Expeditions, Perez climbed Everest without supplemental oxygen in 2016 and summited on the same day as Melissa Arnot, from the United States, who also climbed without oxygen. Perez has achieved what only three other women in the world have done-Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, Italian Nives Meroi, and Brit Alison Hargreaves, who died on her way down from the summit of K2. On July 24, 2019, when Ecuadorian climber Carla Perez stood on K2’s 28,251-foot summit, she became the first woman from the Americas to climb both K2 and Everest without supplemental oxygen.
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