Climber scales Mount Everest in two weeks, a feat that often takes two months. Here’s how she did it
- Californian prepared for ‘lightning ascent’ for three years – working and sleeping in an oxygen-deprived chamber and tent that simulated high altitude
- Roxanne Vogel, who climbed peak from the Chinese side, says staying at a base camp exposes you to illness and a long stay in high mountains makes you weak
Nearly as difficult as summiting 8,848-metre Mount Everest for Roxanne Vogel was coordinating in a mere number of hours her trip home, a task like something out of a Mission Impossible movie mixed with developing-world air travel.
Vogel trained for three years for a trip that defines the term whirlwind: she’d leave home in Berkeley, California, climb the world’s tallest mountain and fly back to California all in 14 days.
On the 12th day, May 22, Vogel reached the peak, which left two days to get halfway around the world and back home while starting at one of the Earth’s most remote locations.
She walked through her front door around 11pm on May 24 – done with one hour to spare.
“This was definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my whole life and I thought I’d adequately tried to prepare for it mentally, but there’s nothing you can do to prepare for it,” Vogel, 33, said in a phone interview. “I still haven’t wrapped my head around it completely yet. It’s life-changing, I suppose.”
