It's hard for some to believe Lucille de Beaudrap when she says she's climbed Mount Everest. At just over five-feet, she's not exactly a hulking Sherpa — they don't even make climbing boots in her size.
She doesn't believe it herself sometimes, she says. "It was almost surreal." But then she checks her camera, sees herself with a Canadian flag on the peak, and says, "Yes, I was there."
de Beaudrap, a flight nurse with STARS Air Ambulance, spoke this Thursday to about 35 seniors at the Foyer Lacombe about the trip she made up Mt. Everest earlier this year. She is the second Alberta woman in history ever to reach the peak.
And she's been waiting to do it for 35 years.
"When I was 10 years old, I wrote down on my [bucket] list that I was going to climb Mt. Everest," she says. "I wanted to see how far I could challenge my body."
It was number one on her list, says de Beaudrap, whose parents used to attend church in St. Albert, but she let it sit there for years as she checked off the other, lesser goals on it: getting a job, a house, running a marathon and more. "I always thought that I can't do it, it's too expensive."
What changed her mind, she says, was a plaque from her sister. On it was were some wise words from Eleanor Roosevelt: "You must do the thing you think you cannot do." Those words pushed her over the top; she started training.
Getting there
de Beaudrap says she started by tackling eight flights of stairs at the Royal Alexandra Hospital at 3 a.m. After she recovered her breath, she decided take things a little slower.
That meant climbing the 662 steps of Edmonton's Telus Plaza every day for hours with an 18-kilogram pack. "I would go up, take the elevator down, and I'd go up again," she says. It was hot, dull and exhausting: just what she needed for Everest. She also trained with other climbers on local peaks such as Mt. Logan, (Canada's tallest mountain).
After two years of training, plus some fundraising for Learn for Life, (a charity that puts Nepalese kids through post-secondary), de Beaudrap was ready. She took a flight to Nepal and began the eight-day hike to the base camp.
A grim challenge rose to meetgreeted her — not the 8,848-metreer mountain, but the peak-shaped granite slab that lists the hundreds that who have died on its slopes over the years. Nearby were about 50 cairn-like monuments to other dead climbers, including famous mountaineer Scott Fischer. "I remember sitting down and thinking, what am I doing?" After 30 minutes of sober second thought, she dried her tears, picked up her pack and soldiered on.
To the top
The actual climb took most of April, de Beaudrap says. Guided by Sherpas, climbers make multiple runs up and down to one of four camps on the mountain to acclimatize until they're ready to go all the way up.
The base camp is a maze of tents atop a scree-covered glacier, she says. "The paths change on a daily basis," she says, as the glacier is in constant motion — you can hear the rush of water and crack of ice when you sleep.
Before you towers your first challenge: the 610-metreer Khumbu icefall, a shifting slope of ice full of deadly crags, cracks and avalanches. It's a five-hour journey, de Beaudrap says, one that involved crossing 30 canyons using tiny aluminium ladders.
"It's a little bit scary," she says. "I never looked all the way down."
The weather is another problem. Most climbs start at 4:30 a.m., de Beaudrap says, when it's about 30 below outside. Massive boots and coats are a must. They start early because of the sun; on a clear afternoon, it feels like it's 25-above. At those times, she'd strip down to a shirt the thickness of a swimsuit.
The sheer size of everything soon messes with your perceptions, she says. The next camp might look like it's only 10 minutes away, for example, but it'll be 10 minutes away for two hours.
Each step is slow and methodical. You're climbing a 55-degree slope of sheer ice, she says, and have to kick several times before your crampons catch. It didn't help that her boots — the smallest on the market — were three sizes too big.
The final ascent started on May 6, de Beaudrap says. "It was 11 hours of not stopping." She could see lightning leap up through thunderclouds below her as she trudged along, and the pyramidal shadow of the peak before her.
Finally, on May 7, at 6:20 a.m., she reached the top of the world. Icy islands floated in a sea of clouds below her, while the sky above was a clear, bright blue. She could see the curvature of the Earth.
"From that height we don't see war, conflict or garbage," she says, "and it's very easy to believe in the goodness of everyone." After a 20-minute break for pictures, she placed a vial of her father's ashes on the peak and started the long trip down.
de Beaudrap says she plans to go back to Nepal this spring to climb some other mountains. She hopes her trip to Everest inspires others to pursue their dreams. "Your dream is only a dream until you write it down and make it a reality."
