On top of the world: Cheney High grad climbs Mount Everest, Lhotse

Katelyn Sims remembers reading books about Mount Everest in the third grade.

A couple of weeks ago, she found herself standing on top of it.

Sims, 34, summited Mount Everest around 11 a.m. on May 23 as part of a five-person expedition guided by Seattle-based Alpine Ascents International.

And she didn’t stop there. After returning to camp from the highest point on Earth, she slept a couple of hours and then set out for Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest peak.

By about 7 a.m., she and a local Sherpa guide made it to the top of Lhotse, giving her the distinction of having climbed both peaks within 24 hours.

“It was pretty surreal,” Sims said in an interview this week. “It almost didn’t feel like it happened.”

The Cheney High School graduate was one of hundreds of climbers to summit Everest during the spring climbing season, which closed at the end of May.

Sims, who lives in Bend, Oregon, works in medical device sales. Her love for being outside started with family backpacking trips in the wilds of North Idaho and western Montana. Mountains have always been a bit of an obsession, though she didn’t take on any major climbs until about six years ago, when she first climbed Mount Rainier.

She did the climb with Alpine Ascents. After that trip and some other high-elevation climbs, she found she liked the challenge.

“I just realized when I started climbing at altitude, I felt really good,” she said.

She started booking bigger trips through Alpine Ascents and traveling for climbs around the world. She climbed volcanoes in Mexico and some of the famed peaks in the Alps.

“It just kind of turned into an annual summer thing,” Sims said.

Everest was always in the back of her mind. The most significant barrier would be getting enough time away from work. Everest is 29,032 feet tall, and traveling climbers need time to get used to altitude. It was going to be a two-month trip.

Sims started talking to her bosses about the possibility of climbing Everest about two years ago. Things lined up for this spring’s climbing season and she got on a plane to Kathmandu in early April.

The journey to Everest starts with the trip to base camp. They were climbing the southern side of the mountain in Nepal. Sims said they trekked for about 10 days to get there, going through big mountain passes.

Everest base camp is at an elevation of about 17,500 feet – about 14,000 feet higher than where Sims lives in Bend, and about 16,000 feet higher than Spokane. Functioning at that elevation is an adjustment.

“You get used to not being able to breathe,” Sims said. “Especially in the mornings. That’s the hardest part. You almost just dread even brushing your teeth.”

Ben Jones, the Alpine Ascents guide leading Sims’ group, posted updates from the trip on the Alpine Ascents website. The group spent a good chunk of time at base camp, resting up from the trek in and making the most of their downtime – there was even a corn hole tournament.

They also took some hikes to higher elevations without oxygen to prepare for the climb to the top. After completing a few of those, it was go time. On May 16, Jones wrote that the team was beginning its journey to the summit.

Wearing oxygen masks, they moved between camps over the next couple of days, eventually reaching Camp 4 – their final base camp, at an elevation of about 26,300 feet. Then they just needed the weather to cooperate.

Around midnight on May 23, their Everest summit push began. On the way up, Sims said, they saw headlamps coming down from a spot known as “the balcony.” It was about 100 climbers, people who had taken off earlier than their group but turned away because they said it was too windy.

Sims said Jones suggested continuing on to the spot where the group had turned around, just to see if the conditions might change.

His instinct turned out to be right. When they reached the balcony, the sun came out and the wind died down.

Because the other group had turned around and the next group to follow was well behind them, they got a taste of something relatively rare on Everest.

“We had the whole mountain to ourselves,” Sims said.

After the summit, they returned to Camp 4. Most of the group was headed directly to another camp the next day, but Sims and one other climber had permits for Lhotse. They got a little sleep and then took off early with two Sherpa guides.

The other climber turned around before reaching the top of Lhotse, however, so for most of the climb it was just Sims and one Sherpa. She got a picture of herself on the summit with the Nepalese flag.

Then they went downhill to meet the rest of the group at Camp 2 – a steep descent that Sims said was one of the toughest parts of the trip.

There was a lot more downhill to do the next day on the way back to base camp. Nasty weather was coming, so they got an early start. This is the portion of the trek that goes through the Khumbu Icefall, a part of the mountain with big crevasses spanned by ladders.

While they were up higher, an avalanche had destroyed part of the route. Sims’ guides and those from a party that was hiking up worked together to put a new one in, providing a safe way to get the whole group back to base camp.

It was all coming to an end. Soon, a helicopter would come to take them all off the mountain and back to Kathmandu. Within days, Sims would be home and back at work.

At base camp that day, having been in Nepal since early April and having knocked out two bucket-list climbs, it was time to celebrate.

“I had my first beer in two months,” Sims said. “It was awesome.”