“I climbed Everest”- Vicky Jack

 

How would you react faced with imminent death? Fortunately few of us will ever face that situation.
 
But Scots mountaineer Vicky Jack, only yards from the top of Everest told us today at a lunch in Callander of her personal experience.
 
Her Sherpa checked their oxygen bottles, discovered they were empty raised his oxygen mask, and said: 
“No oxygen. We die. I go.”
 He bolted down the mountain leaving Vicky alone without oxygen or a guide to take her down through the treacherous 3,000ft Death Zone to the top camp.
 
“You have no idea how you will react when faced with such a situation, I do not blame the Sherpa.”
She attributes her own survival to mental stamina “ which is more important than physical stamina.”
 
Undeterred by this experience Vicky was back the next year in 2004 to successfully climb Everest and become at 51 the oldest British woman to do so and the first Scottish woman to climb the 7 summits – the highest peaks on each of the 7 continents.
 
Since then the record has been broken and the current holder is a Japanese woman, Tamae Watanabe, age 73 years, making her the oldest woman in the world to climb Everest in 2012. 
 
Vicky’s full story is told in her book 
 
“The Sky’s the Limit”- the story of Vicky Jack and Her Quest to Climb Seven Summits by Anna Magnusson, available on Amazon.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMqDBl7ELBs