Lydia Pounamu Bradey | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 9, 1961 Christchurch, New Zealand |
| Occupation | mountaineer |
| Known for | first woman to summit Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen (1988) |
| Partner | Dean Staples |
Lydia Pounamu Bradey ONZM (born 9 October 1961) is a New Zealand mountaineer. She became the first woman to summit Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen in 1988. [1] She has climbed Mount Everest a total of six times. [2] [3] [4]
Lydia Bradey was born to Royce and John Bradey in Christchurch, New Zealand. Her father was absent for most of her childhood, and she and her mother struggled financially. [5] Bradey took up mountain climbing as a teenager; she went on her first wilderness expedition at the age of 14, and by 17 she had climbed to the summits of Mount Cook and Mount Aspiring. [6] During this time she regularly climbed with her friend Rob Hall, and later met his friend Gary Ball. [5] When she was 19, Bradey left New Zealand for a four-year international climbing trip, which included an attempt on Denali in Alaska and ten ascents of Yosemite's big walls, seven of which were the first ascents by a female. [5] [6]
In 1987, Bradey reached the summit of Gasherbrum II, thereby becoming the first Australasian woman to climb one of the world's fourteen 8,000 metre peaks. [6] The climb proved controversial since Bradey was climbing on a permit for the adjacent Gasherbrum I (a peak she had abandoned in favour of Gasherbrum II due to bad weather), making her ascent illegal. [5] In October 1988, Bradey successfully solo climbed Mount Everest, making her the first female to reach the summit without supplemental oxygen, as well as the first New Zealand female and the youngest New Zealander at the time. [7] This ascent, like the previous year on Gasherbrum II, broke rules agreed with the Nepalese. Bradey did not have a permit for the route she climbed, and to avoid being banned from the mountain, her teammates Rob Hall and Gary Ball said she had not reached the summit. When the Nepalese government threatened Bradey with a 10-year climbing ban, she too retracted her claim of a successful ascent, only to reassert her claim to the summit later. [7]
In 1994, Bradey graduated from the University of Auckland with a degree in physiotherapy. She completed a certificate of acupuncture in 1998 and became an International Mountain & Ski Guide (IFMGA) in 2000. [8] Since then she has worked as an alpine guide based in Wānaka. [9] Bradey made her second summit climb of Mount Everest in May 2008, twenty years after her first ascent. She climbed as a guide for a group of clients under the outfitter Adventure Consultants (AC). [9] In 2013, 2016 and 2018 Bradey made her third to fifth ascents of Everest, again as an AC guide; in 2019 she guided Everest for the sixth time, from Tibet, China for an American company Alpenglow Expeditions. [3]
In the 2020 New Year Honours, Bradey was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to mountaineering. [10]
Bradey lives in Lake Hāwea, Otago with her partner Dean Staples. [11] Bradey was the subject of a biography, Lydia Bradey: Going Up is Easy, by Laurence Fearnley. [12]
The Seven Summits are the highest mountains on each of the seven traditional continents. On 30 April 1985, Richard Bass became the first climber to reach the summit of all seven.
Reinhold Andreas Messner is an Italian climber, explorer, and author from the German-speaking province of South Tyrol. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen. He was the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, doing so without supplementary oxygen. Messner was the first to cross Antarctica and Greenland with neither snowmobiles nor dog sleds and also crossed the Gobi Desert alone. He is widely considered to be the greatest mountaineer of all time.
Cho Oyu is the sixth-highest mountain in the world at 8,188 metres (26,864 ft) above sea level. Cho Oyu means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan. The mountain is the westernmost major peak of the Khumbu sub-section of the Mahalangur Himalaya 20 km west of Mount Everest. The mountain stands on the China–Nepal border, between the Tibet Autonomous Region and Koshi Province.
Gasherbrum II ; surveyed as K4, is the 13th highest mountain in the world at 8,035 metres (26,362 ft) above sea level. It is the third-highest peak of the Gasherbrum massif, and is located in the Karakoram, on the border between Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan and Xinjiang, China. The mountain was first climbed on July 7, 1956, by an Austrian expedition which included Fritz Moravec, Josef Larch, and Hans Willenpart.
Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev was a Soviet and Kazakh mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above 8,000 m (26,247 ft)—without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8,000 m.
Alan Hinkes OBE is an English Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. He is the first British mountaineer to claim all 14 Himalayan eight-thousanders, a feat he completed on 30 May 2005.
Robert Edwin Hall was a New Zealand mountaineer. He was the head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition during which he, a fellow guide, and two clients died. A best-selling account of the expedition was given in Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air and the expedition was dramatised in the 2015 film Everest. At the time of his death, Hall had just completed his fifth ascent to the summit of Everest, more at that time than any other non-Sherpa mountaineer.
The 1996 Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10–11 May 1996 when eight climbers caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest season on Mount Everest at the time and the third deadliest after the 23 fatalities resulting from avalanches caused by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake and the 16 fatalities of the 2014 Mount Everest avalanche. The 1996 disaster received widespread publicity and raised questions about the commercialization of Everest.
Nives Meroi is an Italian mountaineer and a climbing writer. On 11 May 2017 she completed the ascent of all 14 eight-thousanders using the alpine style of climbing and without supplementary oxygen.
Andrew James Lock OAM is an Australian mountaineer. He became the first, and still remains the only, Australian to climb all 14 "eight-thousanders" on 2 October 2009, and is the 18th person to ever complete this feat. He climbed 13 of the 14 without bottled oxygen, only using it on Mount Everest, which he has summited three times. He retired from eight-thousander climbing in 2012.
Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is an Austrian mountaineer. In August 2011, she became the second woman to climb the fourteen eight-thousanders and the first woman to do so without using supplemental oxygen or high-altitude porters. In 2012, she won the prestigious National Geographic Explorer of the Year Award.
In the history of mountaineering, the world altitude record referred to the highest point on the Earth's surface which had been reached, regardless of whether that point was an actual summit. The world summit record referred to the highest mountain to have been successfully climbed. The terms are most commonly used in relation to the history of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges, though modern evidence suggests that it was not until the 20th century that mountaineers in the Himalaya exceeded the heights which had been reached in the Andes. The altitude and summit records rose steadily during the early 20th century until 1953, when the ascent of Mount Everest made the concept obsolete.
Ralf Dujmovits is a German mountaineer. In May 2009 he became the 16th person, and the first German, to climb the 14 eight-thousanders.
Ang Dorje (Chhuldim) Sherpa is a Nepalese sherpa mountaineering guide, climber, and porter from Pangboche, Nepal, who has reached the summit of Mount Everest 23 times. He was the climbing Sirdar for Rob Hall's Adventure Consultants expedition to Everest in spring 1996, when a freak storm led to the deaths of eight climbers from several expeditions, considered one of the worst disasters in the history of Everest mountaineering.
Martin Walter Schmidt, known as Marty, was a New Zealand-American mountaineer, guide and adventurer.
Adventure Consultants, formerly Hall and Ball Adventure Consultants, is a New Zealand-based adventure company that brings trekking and climbing groups to various locations. Founded by Rob Hall and Gary Ball in 1991, it is known for its pioneering role in the commercialisation of Mount Everest and the 1996 Mount Everest climb during which eight people died, including Hall, a guide, and two Adventure Consultant clients.
Laurence Fearnley is a New Zealand short-story writer, novelist and non-fiction writer. Several of her books have been shortlisted for or have won awards, both in New Zealand and overseas, including The Hut Builder, which won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards. She has also been the recipient of a number of writing awards and residencies including the Robert Burns Fellowship, the Janet Frame Memorial Award and the Artists to Antarctica Programme.
Kristin Harila is a Norwegian-Northern Saami mountaineer and former cross-country skier. During 2022–2023, she set multiple speed records for the ascent of all 14 eight-thousanders, which are the peaks in the world that are over 8,000 metres in elevation.
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