VERTIGO – Part 9 – The Mountaineers (cont)

The carabiner Annie gave to me. How cool is that?

You are not going to believe this!  I met her. Two weeks after the last blog post, I met Annie Whitehouse, the woman who climbed Annapurna!  In fact, I’m on a plane right this moment, high above the Rockies, flying back from Denver writing about it.  I have my very own carabiner, which I will eventually use for my keys. For now, it sits on our kitchen counter, inspiring us both.

I’ve spent the last four days visiting Karen and William, and their stunningly beautiful daughter, Allison. (Beautiful soul, too -  love the way she glides through the world.) Karen and I played hard the way we used to play during the summers in college.  I felt so free and lighthearted, like a little girl in the summer, knowing I didn’t have to go back to school for three whole months. We rode bikes by the river all day, took diet coke and fried pickle breaks and talked and talked about our lives and the joys and the struggles and the experiences that have shaped us.  


The mornings were especially sweet.  We sipped coffee and these great protein drinks she made us and laid feet to feet in her new hammock; (Annie helped hang it), talking, praying, reading and sometimes even crying. We know each other so well; particularly where we’ve come from, and it was sometimes kind of sad and poignant to see the defenses we’ve taken on to cope with everything life throws at you.  We’re still the same essence of Karen and Karla, but life changes you, doesn’t it?  And there’s nothing like seeing yourself from an old friend’s eyes to reflect how you’ve changed to weather it all through the years.

Bless Karen and William for having a BBQ the last night I was there and inviting a few of their long-time friends, including . . . guess who?  Annie Whitehouse and Jane Gerberding, the two nursing students with Karen at the University of Wyoming I wrote about in the last post!  Annie had recently moved to Denver from Nigeria, serving with Doctors without Borders.  (Of course she was in Nigeria, adventurous girl.)  


I felt comfortable with her right away.  We sat out in the cool of the evening, as the hamburgers and sausages smoked and Karen and William, good people that they are, kept busy in the kitchen, creating a space for us to connect.  And connect we did. Here I was, sitting with Annie Whitehouse, one of the top climbers in the country; maybe even the world and she was incredibly gracious and humble.  She was quiet and elegant and thoughtful.  Being with her made me feel quiet and elegant and thoughtful, too.

I couldn’t wait to get to her story, but she graciously asked me all sorts of questions about myself – big picture kind of questions.  I found myself telling her the story of my life this past 30 years.  And she listened and kept asking questions.  It amazed me that she cared.  I even told her about the vertigo and the story of how I found the mountain climbers and particularly how I had found her reading about that Annapurna expedition.   As we weaved our way into her story, I was able to ask the questions about that climb that had been burning in me over the past months.  I yearned to hear the real story. 

Like why didn’t she go on that second summit trip? 

Karen and Jane joined us after dinner and we looked at the pictures in my precious book I had brought from home for Annie to sign, Annapurna, A Women’s Place. We pored over the maps, tracing their journey through Nepal. We set up base camp with them.  We carried loads across the Dutch Rib. We stared at those forlorn camps high on the mountain and imagined how lonely it would be way up there.  We marveled at the victorious picture of the first summit team. And most importantly, we heard the real story of the second summit team.  Annie was slated with three other women to go up with that team.  Why didn’t she go?  What changed her mind?  What wisdom inside was guiding her? 

Turns out, it was pretty simple.  The best stuff always is.  Twenty-one year old Annie sized it up, turning a hard eye on the limited resources and found that there was nothing left.  Aha, that wasn’t in the book!  The first summit team had exhausted it all; there was no more food, no more oxygen, and no Sherpa support.   But those women on the second summit team were determined to go up anyway.  Annie could see that one of them was really faltering. Her climbing wasn’t strong.  Climbing is all about the team.  Annie looked at the team as a whole and said no.  And despite the pressure, she held her ground.  Dear God, I admired her.

She thought about Yeshi. That wasn’t in the book either. There was someone to come back to - a warm, beating heart who cared about her fiercely, waiting faithfully at base camp. That sweet boy trusted her judgment.  Why take that kind of a chance she asked herself?  Is the summit so important? Her face twisted with such an intense expression as she told that part of her story.  Turns out, that relationship was the real thing.  She ended up marrying him in Namche Bazar. But that’s later. 

She waited for them.  That’s not in the book either.  She waited two days and two long nights, alone at Camp III, waiting for those two women to return from the summit.  I didn’t know that. That brave girl waited for them, utterly alone at Camp III, over 20,000 feet with precious little food or supplies where a bird can’t even survive.  She waited for them so they would have a safe haven to return to on their way back from the summit.  Can you imagine being all alone on the top of the world?  Can you imagine how dark it would be?  How deathly quiet?  My esteem for her soared.

But they never came back. 

Finally, after the second night, she knew that she could wait no longer and she had to come down.  Alone, frighteningly alone, cold, hungry, brain foggy with altitude, she descended slowly along that razor sharp Dutch Rib.  Karen, Jane and I gasped at the picture of it.  It was a long, terrifying way down on either side. She talked about how she had to trust the fixed ropes, slipping on either side, threatening to tumble into Tibet.  


Karen told me later from the hammock that she was just amazed that Annie never once worried that she would die.  That really struck her. The other two women weren’t so fortunate.  No one really knows what happened.  It is surmised that one of them had a fatal slip, pulling the other one down with her. But the details of the tragedy are hidden in their destinies high on that mountain. 

She was only 21 years old.  I can’t help but think that courage, strength, intelligence, common sense and non-anxious trust shaped her character for the rest of her life.  That’s why she went on to climb many more mountains. That’s why she went to Nigeria with Doctors without Borders.  That’s why I got to meet her at that lighthearted gathering of friends on a summer evening in Denver 30 years later.

One more thing.  It was interesting hearing about the different characters of the women on Annapurna.  She said there were basically two kinds of people; those who worried about the food and those who did not.  I went through all of their pictures, “Did she worry about the food?  What about her?”  Of course you know what camp my heroine was in - - the non-anxious presence who did not worry about the food!  


She marveled that she had absolutely no anxiety at 21.  She called it a “take-away” and I’m thinking about that as I reflect not only on the trip, but on how I’ve moved through much of my life as I’ve grown older.  Of course, thirty years later and a lot of life have shown her what anxiety is.  But oh, to be free of anxiety!  That would be my heaven.  I want to be trusting, to be cool under pressure, to know that I’ll get what I need when I need it.  I want to be a mountain climber who doesn’t worry about the food!

But it’s all about balance, isn’t it?  Thank you William and Karen for buying the meat and making the salad and cutting up the watermelon, and making sure there was a great lemon cake and having a backyard to even have a BBQ!  Thank you for your hospitality and generous hearts to contain us all.  Thank you, William and Karen for providing the “food”.  Yes, it’s all about balance.  I’m learning to be smart and prudent, sizing up the available resources, while still being a free spirit, living spontaneously and letting myself be surprised.  More and more, I’m trusting that I’ll make the right decision when a decision is required and until then, live with a clear mind and a light heart. 

Thank you, Annie for sharing your story with me.  Thank you for caring about something beyond the food; thank you for caring about life as it unfurls in its glorious majesty, anchored solidly in the mighty mountain of heart, reason and spirit.

Annie, me, Allison and Karen