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Sites, 'Zines, Books, and Guides for [fierce] Women in General
Reviewed by Lisa Okey
Climbing High: A Woman s Account of Surviving the Everest Tragedy, by Lene Gammelgaard, Seal Press, $25 hardcover
If you are a 1996 Everest tragedy junkie like me and you've read Jon
Krakauer's book, "Into Thin Air" and Anatoli Boukreev s book, "The Climb," then you might be interested in reading what Lene Gammelgaard, a Danish climber who was on the climb was thinking when she became the first Scandinavian woman to successfully summit Mt. Everest. Lene, who published her account of the '96 tragedy in native Denmark, became a big celebrity in her country and started giving inspirational/motivational talks at large corporations. Gammelgaard's book is inspiring and at times a little annoying for the detailed information she leaves out. Filled with many "Be Here Now" thoughts like: "The well-balanced person strives not only for a goal, but lives fully in the flow of life, because every expression in the process is equally important." Zen philosophy abounds, but don't expect a comprehensive account of what happened on the mountain as in Krakauer's account. This book is more of an impressionistic sketch. Lene is highly ambitious (she s a lawyer, a psychotherapist, and she started a needle exchange program in Copenhagen), very focused, and idealistic. She trained for Everest by climbing, jogging, swimming, practicing Tai Chi, talking to other climbers, and reading about positive and successful Everest expeditions. Gammelgaard wanted to "code her mind with positive input" to overcome her own skepticism and stories she had collected over the years as arguments against climbing mountains. One of the reasons she wanted to climb Everest was that after working with drug addicts for several years, she was "in need of input from people who have succeeded in life." Gammelgaard has been climbing since 1985, bagging peaks in the Himalayan mountains and France s Chamonix range. Trekking in Nepal in 1991, she met Scott Fischer. Gammelgaard said that Scott gave her the opportunity of a lifetime and changed her life completely in 1995 when he invited her to climb Everest as a client on his Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition in 1996. This book chronicles Lene's adventures from Katmandu to summiting Everest and then surviving the storm that killed 8 others. Written in brief journal-style passages, this book begs for more detail, and as the reader, believe me, I was begging for more personal information about the other climbers as well.
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