Quote:Balanced on the edges of her skis on a steep, icy ledge on Canada’s Mount Robson, Christina Lustenberger picked her route down: all 3,000 meters (9,843 ft) of it. Sheer, exposed drops flanked each side of her, as she and her partner, Guillaume “Gee” Pierrel, prepared to descend an uncharted route on the mountain they had taken two days and two gruelling attempts to climb, through battering storms and bitter cold. Any misstep or wrong turn could prove deadly.

A ski prodigy from an early age, Lustenberger grew up hearing stories of adventurers who had climbed the imposing mountain, which, with an elevation of 12,970 feet is the tallest in the Canadian Rockies. Routes down Robson had been skied only a few times before, and the Great Couloir — a huge, steep snow gully that leads to the summit — on the mountain’s south face had never been attempted.

Quote:At the end of summer, five climbers made the first ascent of a new alpine route in Georgia’s Caucasus. Over a four-day weather window, Elisabeth Mayr, Elena Barbist, Elena Prem, Hannah Rabl, and Babsi Vigl climbed the southwest face of Gulba (3,725 m). The climbers are taking part in a two-year program in Austria at Alpinkader that aims to “support and train female alpinists, foster community, and encourage more women in the sport.”

Quote:All that work helped Grabow endure the world’s most prestigious triathlon competition on Oct. 11 in Kona, Hawaii, where over the course of 16 hours, 45 minutes and 26 seconds, Grabow finished the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run at the Ironman World Championship.

She didn’t win, yet she set a record.

At 80, she is the oldest woman ever to finish the grueling, 140.6-mile competition, often held in windy, humid conditions.

Quote:“Being healthier at 80 than your doctor expects is such a joy,” Betty “Legend” Kellenberger tells me over email. That might be an understatement. On September 12, Kellenberger made history by becoming the oldest woman to complete a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. With 2,200 miles under her belt, she admits that she’s tired and in need of a nap, but she’s still made time to answer my questions.

The women’s age record previously belonged to Linda “Nana” Vanderloop, who finished the trail last year at age 74. Much like Vanderloop, Kellenberger didn’t set out on the AT with the goal of becoming the oldest woman thru-hiker. “The age record was incidental. In fact, I was nearly done before people started asking my age and suggesting I could be breaking the record,” she says.

She had been dreaming of thru-hiking since childhood. “Bear in mind that the trail was only 20 years old when I was born. I read about it in elementary school. Georgia to Maine and everything in between. Pure magic. It caught my attention and my imagination.”

Quote:Two British women have completed an 8,213 nautical mile non-stop row across the Pacific Ocean, arriving in the Australian coastal city of Cairns after a near six-month voyage from Peru.
Miriam Payne and Jess Rowe were unsupported across the vast expanse of ocean, spending around 15 hours each day at the oars to become the first all-female pair to achieve the feat.

Quote:It was May 4, 1975. The Japanese Women’s Everest Expedition team had been living at a high altitude for six weeks, and were less than a week away from their scheduled bid for the summit of Mount Everest. Exhausted, having established camp five at just below 8,000 meters on the south side of the mountain, Junko Tabei and her team descended to camp two at 6,300 meters to rest.

Then — avalanche!

In the early hours, tons of ice and snow engulfed the camp, burying several of the teammates. Crushed by the snow and ice, Tabei was unable to move. It took the strength of four Sherpas, the elite Nepali climbing guides assisting the expedition, to pull her out. Suffering severe bruising, Tabei argued that she did not need to be returned to base camp to recover, and would remain at camp two.

“There was no way I was leaving the mountain,” she later recalled in her memoir.

It had taken five years for this group — the first all-women team — to get to Everest. The pressure on them to succeed was immense, given the limited number of annual international permits to climb Mount Everest issued by the Nepali government. If they gave up, they might have to wait several years to make another attempt.

Meanwhile, on the Tibetan side of the mountain, Tabei’s team had competition. A 200-strong Chinese team was also working to place a woman on the summit at the same time.

From the late 1950s, Tibetan women were recruited to participate in state-sponsored Chinese mountaineering expeditions. In 1958, Pan Duo had been selected to participate in the successful Chinese 1960 Everest expedition — but was ordered to remain below 6,400 meters because above that height was “a man’s world”. Nonetheless, Pan Duo — referred to as “Mrs Phanthog” in some older accounts — was celebrated in her country and elected deputy captain of the 1975 Chinese Everest Expedition.

Unfortunately, the Chinese team suffered a climbing accident resulting in the death of a team member. They retreated to recover — only to be ordered by the Chinese government to “climb ahead of the Japanese women.”

They were too late. On May 16, 1975, the all-women Japanese expedition worked together to place Tabei on the summit of Everest. Two team members — Tabei and Yuriko Watanabe — had been nominated to make the summit attempt. However, other teammates were suffering from altitude sickness, so Watanabe was assigned to help return them to camp two.

The ascent Tabei was making was arduous. Given her injuries, it took great tenacity to muster the strength to continue. But finally, she took her last steps to the summit, becoming the first woman and 40th person, according to the latest official record, to summit the peak. She was part of only the tenth successful Everest expedition, later recalling: “I felt pure joy as my thoughts registered: ‘Here is the summit. I don’t have to climb any more.’”

Eleven days later, the Chinese team returned to the high slopes to make another attempt. Using minimal oxygen, Pan Duo was also successful, becoming the second woman to summit Everest — and the first to climb the harder northern side of the mountain.

Quote:She is the first American to win the finals since Serena Williams in 2014 and received $4.8 million in prize money. She also is the youngest player to win it since Maria Sharapova in 2004, the year Gauff was born.