Trekking by way of the cloud-crowned, snow-capped peak of Gora Dykh-Tau in Russia, Jenn Drummond felt the electrical storm swirling round her, however she could not see it.
At this level, the mother-of-seven from Utah was no stranger to the hazard of mountains, with this 5205-metre big of stone and ice the third on her record to climb.
She was on a daring quest to set a Guinness World Record.
But as attuned to danger as Drummond was, the uncooked components of the fierce peak stunned her.
“I thought an electrical storm you always saw, that you would see the electricity,” Drummond advised 9news.com.au.
“You didn’t. You were in it. You would hear it and all of a sudden your ice axe on your back would get really really hot and you would have to take it out and throw it to break the connection.
“That was scary. I did not even have that concern on K2, the concern on K2 was whether or not somebody would knock a rock down forward of me.
“The fear on Dykh-Tau was would there be an avalanche, am I going to get struck by lightning, is my partner going to fall so we’re both in trouble?
Drummond, who is now 43, said part of the mountain’s volatility rises from the fact it lies between two seas.
“It will get a ton of snow and moisture,” she said.
“On Dykh-Tau you possibly can set off so many avalanches, so it’s important to watch the ridge line all the time.”
The mother’s efforts and perseverance paid off and she managed to summit the elemental peak during that September 2021 climb.
And so another mountain was ticked off her list.
Drummond this year became the first and only woman to conquer all Seven Second Summits, the second-highest mountains on Earth.
The list of respected peaks includes Mount Logan in Canada; Mount Townsend in Australia; K2 in Pakistan, widely regarded as the most difficult mountain to climb; Mount Tyree in Antarctica; Gora Dykh-Tau in Russia; Mount Kenya in Kenya; and Ojos del Salado in Chile.
So how did the mission come into being?
The car crash and a blonde joke
“It ought to have taken my life however it did not, and we do not understand how,” she said.
“I walked away and was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I do not get to decide on after I depart this world however I certain get to decide on how I dwell.'”
The mother started soul-searching all through 2019, filing through all the things she hadn’t done but still wanted to.
As her 40th birthday rapidly approached, she set her sights on climbing a mountain called Ama Dablam in Nepal – but that plan quickly derailed.
“Then COVID hits and swiftly I’m a home-school instructor,” she said.
“And my son is combating maths, and I’m like, ‘Listen buddy, all of us do laborious issues, you’ve got this’ and he rotated and replied, ‘If we’re doing laborious issues, why are you climbing a mountain known as I’m A Dumb Blonde as an alternative of an actual mountain like Everest?’
“That wordplay was rather cute, so I said, ‘Ok, you finish your homework and we’ll look at Everest.'”
And have a look at Everest they did: Drummond began coaching and even employed a coach.
”He had me read a book and at the front, someone had set a Guinness World Record for skiing across the Alps or something.
“Half-joking I stated, ‘I may have carried out that, I can undergo and if I bought a Guinness World Record, my youngsters would suppose I’m so cool.’
“He promised to find one for me.”
Two months later, she bought a name from her coach with the “perfect fit”: the Seven Second Summits.
“He said, ‘You have seven children, seven continents, seven mountains – it sounds like a jackpot’,” she remembers.
“And that’s how it all came about.”
How the mission performed out
Drummond managed to climb all seven peaks in a powerful two and a half years, whereas one way or the other additionally navigating COVID-19 border closures.
And in between all that, she managed to additionally sort out Everest, the world’s highest mountain.
She stated of all of the peaks tackled, Mount Logan in Canada was by far essentially the most tough.
Ultimately, it will take two makes an attempt to summit the 5956-metre peak as a result of through the first, in May 2022, her staff was “pulled from the mountain” as a consequence of unhealthy climate.
But in June of this 12 months, she managed to tick the granodiorite behemoth off her record, and in doing so set her file.
But she stated this climb wasn’t with out its challenges.
It was unbearably chilly, reaching -54 levels, the coldest temperature of any of Drummond’s climbs.
“It’s so laborious,” she said.
“You are dropped off on a glacier, you have to ski up it as that’s the fastest way and you’re carrying all your stuff, on backpack and sleds, and there’s no real trail, you have to figure out how to go around crevasses.
“It’s additionally tremendous windy, visibility is not the perfect and you’ll’t transfer on that mountain with out it since you would get misplaced tremendous simple.
“It’s not technically hard, it’s just the weather constantly reminds you to go home.”
But one of the stunning climbs occurred on Australia’s soil in November 2022.
“I had a bit of an ego,” she stated, including she did not look forward to the Thredbo’s chairlift to open when she took on Mount Townsend within the NSW’s Snowy Mountains.
“We hiked to Kosciuszko and did that one first because it’s on the way to Mount Townsend.
“It’s all a path, tremendous well-maintained, so I’m considering we’ll have a incredible day.
“Then the weather started to turn.
“There was nonetheless snow there, which wasn’t imagined to occur.
“So there was no path there and it was full of snow. I wasn’t anticipating the level of snow.
“For the final mile up and mile again, we have been post-holing, so the snow was beginning to rot beneath the highest stage, you’ll step by way of and you’ll fall by way of as much as your thigh – every step was enormous and heavy.
“It was the hardest, easiest mountain I’ve ever climbed.”
World’s high 10 deadliest mountains
Drummond hopes her story will assist encourage others to climb their very own mountains, whether or not or not it’s “metaphorical or literal”.
“I just want to help others have the courage to continue when they want to turn around,” she stated.
“One of the lessons I learned is you can go so much longer than you think you can.
“We have this enormous universe of so many cool environments and completely different locations to see and as people, we get the chance to try this.
“So explore, experiment, and try it, the journey is where the reward is.
“‘I’m so grateful for all the expertise.”
Source: www.9news.com.au
