[Vision2020] Suddenly I Don't Feel So Old

Sat May 23 07:56:56 PDT 2009

This article is awesome Tom!  And I thought my grandma was BadAss for taking up downhill skiing in Spokane at 65yrs old.  The full contact ballroom dancing at Sinto 5 nights a week should have been a clue.  I'm sharing this one with my dad for sure.

To all on "The Viz"  Have a nice Memorial day!  

Don   

> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 07:22:36 -0700 (PDT)
> From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
> Subject: [Vision2020] Suddenly I Don't Feel So Old
> To: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Message-ID: <63bbb47445f737fa0e166070a8a55983.squirrel at secure.fsr.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> Courtesy of today's (May 23, 2009) Spokesman Review.
> 
> -------------------------------------------
> 
> Another Everest Record Broken
> Spokane is having a senior moment on Mount Everest this week.
> 
> Kay LeClaire, 60, of Spokane, was on top of the world Friday night as she
> became the oldest U.S. woman to climb Mount Everest.
> 
> Late Friday, she was beginning the dangerous descent from the summit after
> climbing for more than 10 hours in cold, windy weather.
> 
> She?s the second Spokane-area resident to reach the summit this week. On
> Tuesday, Spokane?s Dawes Eddy, 66, reached the 29,035-foot summit and
> became the oldest U.S. man to climb the world?s highest mountain and
> return to base camp alive.
> 
> LeClaire departed Spokane on March 29 for her fourth attempt at Everest in
> five years. The achievement caps her quest to climb the ?seven summits? ?
> the highest point on each continent.
> 
> ?I?m thrilled,? said her husband, Jerry LeClaire, who was monitoring the
> expedition?s progress Friday night over the Internet. ?And I?ll be even
> more thrilled when she calls by satellite phone and tells me she?s safely
> back at base camp.?
> 
> One team member had to leave the mountain last week after suffering
> frostbite on eight fingers after briefly taking off his mittens, Jerry
> LeClaire said. ?It?s been bitter cold up there,? he said.
> 
> Kay LeClaire was with a group of eight climbers and four guides with
> Alpine Ascents International, based in Seattle.
> 
> She slept the night before the summit bid at Camp 4 on the South Col,
> breathing a low flow of bottled oxygen at elevation 26,300 feet. Her
> previous high point was 23,600 feet, which she reached on Everest in 2006.
> 
> Jerry LeClaire talked to her briefly by satellite phone Thursday night.
> 
> ?She was coughing but, she said, ?feeling strong,?&#8194;? said the
> Spokane physician, noting that she had been toughing out a cold earlier in
> the climb.
> 
> Her tent mate was suffering from snowblindness in one eye.
> 
> The group left camp for the summit about 10 p.m. Nepal time (10 a.m. PDT
> in Spokane). LeClaire was in the lead group that reached the summit about
> 8&#8194;1/2 hours later, with a long descent still to come.
> 
> Former Spokane resident David Coombs climbed Mount Hood with LeClaire two
> years ago as she was training for one of her Everest expeditions.
> 
> ?As I remember, the Mountaineers had canceled a climb because of the
> weather, but Kay was determined to go, so she called me,? he said.
> 
> ?Kay is very level-headed, and obviously determined,? Coombs said in a
> telephone interview from Boulder, Colo. ?She?s very fit, both aerobically
> and strengthwise.
> 
> ?I remember on that climb that we walked right past groups of college
> climbers. Kay has a steady pace, not the fastest, but she?s still going
> when a lot of other people have dropped.?
> 
> LeClaire got a taste of the Himalayas in 1970 on a trek while her family
> served in Nepal for the Agency for International Development.
> 
> ?She has hiked and exercised all her life, but only took to mountaineering
> on a climb of Mount Rainier in 2000 at age 50,? her husband said.
> 
> She was ?appalled by her own lack of technical climbing skills,? he said,
> so she enrolled herself ? as well as her husband and son ? in the Spokane
> Mountaineers Mountain School in 2001.
> 
> Later that year, the family climbed the first of her ?seven summits,?
> Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
> 
> LeClaire?s climbing r?sum? since includes 30 significant peaks from
> Alaska?s Mount McKinley to Vinson Massif in Antarctica, as well as 10
> ascents of Cascades volcanoes from Mount Baker to Mount Shasta.
> 
> ?She had initially planned to do the Coeur d?Alene Ironman in June and
> talked of returning to Everest in 2010,? Jerry LeClaire said.
> 
> ?She changed her mind when she found out that a good friend of hers from
> previous climbs, Lori Schneider, of Bayfield, Wis., planned to go to
> Everest this spring.
> 
> ?She tried to keep her bid quiet until she was on the airplane, concealing
> it even from another good friend,? he added, noting that she didn?t want
> to detract from Eddy?s effort to make history on the world?s highest peak.
> 
> ------
> 
> Kay LeClaire
> http://tinyurl.com/KayLeClaire
> 
> -------------------------------------------
> 
> Seeya at Farmers' Market, Moscow.
> 
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
> 
> "The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
> and the Realist adjusts his sails."
> 
> - Unknown
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> End of Vision2020 Digest, Vol 35, Issue 105
> *******************************************

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