Mountaineer Alison Levine talks Everest, determination at Town Hall series

TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY

Molly Rosbach

Yakima Herald-Republic, Wash. (TNS)

If anyone is qualified to be a motivational speaker, it’s Alison Levine.

She’s summited the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents. She’s skied across the Arctic Circle and Antarctica to reach both the North and South poles, hauling gear that weighed more than she does and battling a neurological disease that makes her hands and feet highly susceptible to frostbite.

After surviving some of the world’s harshest conditions imaginable, she’s not someone who’s easily intimidated.

“Everybody has that voice that tells them they can keep going; you just have to find it,” she said Wednesday morning before her Town Hall presentation at the Capitol Theatre.

During her first experience with altitude, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, she was about to give up, but persuaded herself to take just one more step. And then one more, and one more after that.

“I did that until I got to the summit,” she said. “Now, I know in any situation where I feel like quitting … I stop and I sit down and I find that voice that tells me I can do this.”

Levine, 50, who authored the bestselling “On The Edge” about her mountaineering experience, was the final speaker of the 2015-16 Town Hall series. She shared leadership lessons from her book and kept the audience entertained by demonstrating high-altitude breathing techniques across the stage.

She showed photos from her two trips up Mount Everest, including the first American Women’s Everest Expedition she led in 2002. After the grueling two-month trek up the mountain, they were forced to turn back just 200 feet from the summit due to dangerous weather conditions.

At 29,000 feet above sea level, climbers can’t go any farther than their oxygen supply and gear allow. They must take five to 10 breaths between steps just to keep going. After being stymied by the storm, the women could not try for the summit a second time.

“You have to be able to make very tough decisions when the conditions around you are far from perfect,” Levine said. “You have to think about how every single move you make is going to affect everyone around you, and if the conditions aren’t right, you turn around, cut your losses and you walk away.”

That caused some chafing when the team returned; Levine recalled one man in particular asserting that since she hadn’t summited, she didn’t “really” climb Everest.

She responded by asking where he worked. JP Morgan, the man replied. “So you’re the CEO?” she asked. No; not the CEO. “Oh, you’re not the CEO? Then it doesn’t count!”

She got her full satisfaction in 2010 when she made it all the way to the summit – again facing serious storm conditions – in honor of her friend Meg Berte Owen, a renowned athlete who died of a lung infection after two bouts of lymphoma.

“Take that, JP Morgan guy!” Levine said.

But mountaineering is far from Levine’s only accomplishment. She also worked as an adjunct professor at West Point, got her MBA from Duke University, spent three years with Goldman Sachs, and served as deputy finance director in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California gubernatorial campaign in 2003. And over the past several years, she’s been active in promoting women trekking guides in Uganda and in telling the story of Pasang Llhamu Sherpa, the first Nepali woman to summit Everest.

The world of female mountaineering is not without its detractors, she said, both for women in developing countries and for her own team heading up Everest.

While most of the people on the mountain during the American women’s expedition were kind, “There were people who wanted us to fail,” she said.

“When you’re in a remote, extreme environment, you want to feel like the people around you are supportive; would be there if you need anything,” she said. “I definitely didn’t feel like that was always the case.”

In western Uganda, where a main source of employment is guiding climbers through the Rwenzori Mountains, women were barred from the work simply because “It’s always been that way.”

Levine helped convince the directors of the park service that allowing women to earn income from guiding would benefit the entire community’s economy. And she recruited local women to train as porters and trekking guides, proving to the male naysayers that women were indeed strong enough to do the work.

“They made the climb, carried the weight; they were amazing,” she said.

Levine is currently working on a documentary called “The Glass Ceiling” about Pasang, telling the story of how she broke barriers to be the first Nepali woman to summit Everest, on her fourth attempt in 1993. Tragically, she died on the way down, leaving behind three children. But her legacy has inspired young Nepali women and girls to pick up where she left off.

Her trips have taught Levine that while she may not be as physically strong as her taller, heavier male counterparts, she can contribute her own strength.

“Instead of beating yourself up to overcome your weakness, find a way to compensate … where your talents can really shine,” she said.

For anyone considering a life of adventure and exploration, but who may be daunted by the financial demands, Levine says she’s been there, too.

“Most of my larger trips have been sponsored,” she said. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way; you just have to cast a very wide net of people you approach, and you can’t be afraid of rejection.”

“You just have to persevere.”

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)2016 Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, Wash.)

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