Alison Hargreaves: Thoughts and reflections from the Outside community

As news of the K2 tragedy spread, we began receiving notes from around the world. This is your place, and we hope this forum can serve as a forum for reflection. Please feel free to send in your thoughts as well.

Last November, Alison Hargreaves opened the annual Banff Festival of Mountain films with her presentation, "A Hard Day's Summer" -- which recounted her solo ascents on the six classic north faces of the Alps: the Matterhorn, the Grandes Jorasses, the Cima Grande, the Piz Badile, the Drus, and the Eiger. The packed auditorium sat with rapt attention, almost dumbfounded as she matter of factly told her amazing story and showed her slides.

As she was a soloing these peaks, her pictures were invariably of the other climbers that she saw through the viewfinder looking up the mountain. "There's the Italian team" or "these two left the hut early", were her comments. The next picture would be of Alison smiling, a close-up of her taken by a member of the "team" or one of the "two". Invariably there would be a picture looking back down on the ant size climbers that she had just passed. Wryly, she mentioned that most of the climbers that she passed in this manner were "off-put" by being passed by a woman.

Alison showed us lots of pictures of her young children, Tom and Katie, of her husband Jim, and of Perkins, their stalwart Land Rover which served as their base camp for their summer of the north faces. She clearly showed as much love for her family as she did passion for climbing. There were pictures of her with her children at the top of a technical training climb - Jim had driven them up in Perkins to meet her. Her children knew first hand that their mom was a mountain climber.

Alison was the perfect opener for the festival and its theme "Women in Adventure". Over the course of the next few days other women climbers such as Christine Janin, Nancy Feagin, Sharon Wood and Arlene Blum gave presentations and shared their climbing experiences.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the Saturday lunch seminar where these women answered questions from the predominately female audience. Most of the questions were of the "admiring their skill and determination" variety. But, some of the audience members were aghast that Alison would dare to mountain climb being the mother of two small children and let her know it. The pro and con forces went on like this for a few moments, temporarily derailing the seminar.

I went to the microphone and added my two cents worth. I said to Alison that if she were my mom and died while climbing, yes, it would be emotionally devastating for me as a child but when I became an adult, I could understand and reconcile her decision to climb. I would come to know that she died doing what she had a passion to do, that she was one of the best climbers (male of female) in the world, and that she made money at it - it was her career.

Whether or not she was in a high risk occupation, (which seemed to incite the anti-Alison audience members), would make no difference to me. Women, mothers, people, die everyday in a hundred senseless ways. For me, dying in a natural disaster or doing an activity for which one has a passion for is the way to die - a way that makes a modicum of sense.

When I read the bulletin about Alison and the other climbers on Outside on-line, I was so sad and melancholy. I also felt guilty. Less than a year ago I was discussing her "death" with an audience and yet at the time I thought that she would be the last person to die climbing. She was so fit, confident, skillful and intelligent.

As details of the events surrounding her death have come out, it leaves me with an profound sense of respect for nature. I couldn't help but think of my back country trip in the Canadian Rockies two weeks ago in which the weather changed from sunshine to cold, pelting rain in less than an hour. I was miserable. I cried when I thought of my encounter with nasty weather and the order of magnitude of weather that those climbers encountered.

Because of the intimacy of the Banff Festival of Mountain Films, my wife an I were lucky to have met Alison and to have talked with her at length. We seemed to bump into her all the time and it became kind of a joke. The last time that we saw her, it was to buy her book "A Hard Day's Summer" at the book fair. Her book had just been published but she didn't have any copies. We plunked down our money anyway and received a color photocopy of the cover which she cheerfully signed. Just before Christmas the book arrived and it too had been signed.

We were so happy when Alison soloed Everest; we felt that she had taken us there too. And when we heard that she had died on K2, a little part of us died too. She was a truly wonderful person and will always remain a guiding light for our adventures.

Blake Johnson
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

I was a member of the British Mount Everest Medical Expedition last year. Alison was making her first attempt on Everest linked with our expedition.

She turned up for most of the publicity days while we were trying to raise funds, and would answer the questions of the press, but many of us got the impression that she was rather abrupt and she didn't really talk with those of us who were there for the trekking and medical aspects.

I belayed her from the top of the Lloyds building in London on one of the stunts but few words passed between us and she disappeared as soon as the press had gone.

We got more chance to talk at Everest base camp, along with Jim and the two kids, Tom and Kate. It started to become obvious how much commitment Alison had to her climbing, as well as her love for her family. We could all listen in to her radio chats with the kids when she was up on the mountain. Jim's absolute support for what Alison had chosen to do with her life was also clear.

Alison had expressed her worries about knowing when to stop as she was climbing the high mountains. Would she take herself past the limit where return was virtually impossible?

Our group had headed off to climb Parchamo whilst the assault on Everest continued, but we were able to get regular radio contact with the expedition leader at camp 2. We heard the great news that Charlie and Roddy had made it to the top. They had left the South Col on a half chance that the weather would improve during the day, which it did. Alison, without oxygen, was unable to take half chances so stayed on the col.

During the next few days the weather deteriorated and we were all relieved that Alison came back down. She was able to rationalize the situation and know that the weather had beaten her. Within a few days we were all back in Kathmandu to a series of parties where Alison was relaxed and chatting to everyone.

On the flight home, during a stop-over in Karachi, a small group of us went down to the beach and went paddling in the dark. Great fun splashing around in the Indian Ocean. That will be my lasting recollection of Alison, smiling and laughing, stood up to her knees in the sea. She had given everything she could to her first attempt on Everest, had been able to judge when to retreat, but had now switched back to the other side of her life and was enjoying that to the full also.

My thoughts go out to Jim and the kids. It was an honour knowing Alison, however briefly.

Denzil Broadhurst

Last November, I had the pleasure of meeting Alison at the Banff Mountain Book Festival.

She was there for several days at a booth across from mine launching her new book A Hard Days Summer. I was struck by her warmth and friendliness and found her to be a very likeable person.

She also gave a great slide show, in an unassuming style, covering her six north face climbs. Over the course of the several days she didn't seem to mind answering the many questions that people posed to her.

We talked of her attempt on Everest's southeast ridge where she got to about 8400 metres before severe cold drove her down. I thought this was a tremendous achievement from someone who, I believe, had not been to such extreme altitudes before. She also said she was looking forward to another attempt. I was thrilled to hear this past spring that she had made it. (See Stephen Venables article in the July issue of High magazine for a good writeup.)

Just last week I was thinking she ought to be getting back from K2 soon and I was anxious to hear the results. Now this.

Away from the mountains, Alison liked to collect books written by women mountaineers and I was very pleased to present her with one that she did not have. I have no doubt that she would have written another one herself describing her climb of Everest, K2, and, perhaps, Kangchenjunga.

My heart goes out to her family and friends. We have lost a shining star of the climbing community.

Greg Glade