Not Even The Sky’s The Limit To These Cancer Survivors

If you ask Ashley Cox about coping with breast cancer at age 18, she won’t mince words.

“The point is to be alive,” said Cox. “Life doesn’t end after breast cancer.”

That is why she answered an ad in Outside magazine to join 16 other breast cancer survivors for the arduous climb of 22,834-foot Mount Aconcagua.

The highest point in the Western Hemisphere, the Argentine mountain is plagued by dangerous weather and a life-threatening lack of oxygen on its summit.

Wednesday night on PBS, Bill Kurtis’s “New Explorers” series documents the January climb, called “Expedition Inspiration.” The trek was both a physical metaphor for conquering the deadly disease and a good way to raise money.

It was a lot of money, Cox said. The trip raised $2.3 million for the Breast Cancer Fund (1-800-487-0492), which channels money into research and support groups. Through the agency, other stricken young women have contacted her - “no one as young as I was, though,” she said.

Cox, a native of Charlottesville, Va., underwent a single mastectomy during her senior year in high school.

“It was a drag,” she said. “I was so young when I was diagnosed I couldn’t find a support group anywhere.”

Now a 22-year-old University of Montana student, Cox has scaled mountains in Montana and Colorado and plans to hit Alaska next summer. After that, the sky’s the limit:

“I have (a picture of Mount) Everest on my mirror in my bathroom,” she said.

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ON THE AIR The “Expedition Inspiration” episode of “New Explorers” airs Wednesday at 7 p.m. on Spokane’s KSPS-Channel 7, Coeur d’Alene’s KCDT-Channel 26 and Moscow’s KUID-Channel 12.