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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.<BR>
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To all on "The Viz" Have a nice Memorial day! <BR>
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Don <BR>
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<BR>> Message: 4<BR>> Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 07:22:36 -0700 (PDT)<BR>> From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen@moscow.com><BR>> Subject: [Vision2020] Suddenly I Don't Feel So Old<BR>> To: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020@moscow.com><BR>> Message-ID: <63bbb47445f737fa0e166070a8a55983.squirrel@secure.fsr.com><BR>> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1<BR>> <BR>> Courtesy of today's (May 23, 2009) Spokesman Review.<BR>> <BR>> -------------------------------------------<BR>> <BR>> Another Everest Record Broken<BR>> Spokane is having a senior moment on Mount Everest this week.<BR>> <BR>> Kay LeClaire, 60, of Spokane, was on top of the world Friday night as she<BR>> became the oldest U.S. woman to climb Mount Everest.<BR>> <BR>> Late Friday, she was beginning the dangerous descent from the summit after<BR>> climbing for more than 10 hours in cold, windy weather.<BR>> <BR>> She?s the second Spokane-area resident to reach the summit this week. On<BR>> Tuesday, Spokane?s Dawes Eddy, 66, reached the 29,035-foot summit and<BR>> became the oldest U.S. man to climb the world?s highest mountain and<BR>> return to base camp alive.<BR>> <BR>> LeClaire departed Spokane on March 29 for her fourth attempt at Everest in<BR>> five years. The achievement caps her quest to climb the ?seven summits? ?<BR>> the highest point on each continent.<BR>> <BR>> ?I?m thrilled,? said her husband, Jerry LeClaire, who was monitoring the<BR>> expedition?s progress Friday night over the Internet. ?And I?ll be even<BR>> more thrilled when she calls by satellite phone and tells me she?s safely<BR>> back at base camp.?<BR>> <BR>> One team member had to leave the mountain last week after suffering<BR>> frostbite on eight fingers after briefly taking off his mittens, Jerry<BR>> LeClaire said. ?It?s been bitter cold up there,? he said.<BR>> <BR>> Kay LeClaire was with a group of eight climbers and four guides with<BR>> Alpine Ascents International, based in Seattle.<BR>> <BR>> She slept the night before the summit bid at Camp 4 on the South Col,<BR>> breathing a low flow of bottled oxygen at elevation 26,300 feet. Her<BR>> previous high point was 23,600 feet, which she reached on Everest in 2006.<BR>> <BR>> Jerry LeClaire talked to her briefly by satellite phone Thursday night.<BR>> <BR>> ?She was coughing but, she said, ?feeling strong,?&#8194;? said the<BR>> Spokane physician, noting that she had been toughing out a cold earlier in<BR>> the climb.<BR>> <BR>> Her tent mate was suffering from snowblindness in one eye.<BR>> <BR>> The group left camp for the summit about 10 p.m. Nepal time (10 a.m. PDT<BR>> in Spokane). LeClaire was in the lead group that reached the summit about<BR>> 8&#8194;1/2 hours later, with a long descent still to come.<BR>> <BR>> Former Spokane resident David Coombs climbed Mount Hood with LeClaire two<BR>> years ago as she was training for one of her Everest expeditions.<BR>> <BR>> ?As I remember, the Mountaineers had canceled a climb because of the<BR>> weather, but Kay was determined to go, so she called me,? he said.<BR>> <BR>> ?Kay is very level-headed, and obviously determined,? Coombs said in a<BR>> telephone interview from Boulder, Colo. ?She?s very fit, both aerobically<BR>> and strengthwise.<BR>> <BR>> ?I remember on that climb that we walked right past groups of college<BR>> climbers. Kay has a steady pace, not the fastest, but she?s still going<BR>> when a lot of other people have dropped.?<BR>> <BR>> LeClaire got a taste of the Himalayas in 1970 on a trek while her family<BR>> served in Nepal for the Agency for International Development.<BR>> <BR>> ?She has hiked and exercised all her life, but only took to mountaineering<BR>> on a climb of Mount Rainier in 2000 at age 50,? her husband said.<BR>> <BR>> She was ?appalled by her own lack of technical climbing skills,? he said,<BR>> so she enrolled herself ? as well as her husband and son ? in the Spokane<BR>> Mountaineers Mountain School in 2001.<BR>> <BR>> Later that year, the family climbed the first of her ?seven summits,?<BR>> Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.<BR>> <BR>> LeClaire?s climbing r?sum? since includes 30 significant peaks from<BR>> Alaska?s Mount McKinley to Vinson Massif in Antarctica, as well as 10<BR>> ascents of Cascades volcanoes from Mount Baker to Mount Shasta.<BR>> <BR>> ?She had initially planned to do the Coeur d?Alene Ironman in June and<BR>> talked of returning to Everest in 2010,? Jerry LeClaire said.<BR>> <BR>> ?She changed her mind when she found out that a good friend of hers from<BR>> previous climbs, Lori Schneider, of Bayfield, Wis., planned to go to<BR>> Everest this spring.<BR>> <BR>> ?She tried to keep her bid quiet until she was on the airplane, concealing<BR>> it even from another good friend,? he added, noting that she didn?t want<BR>> to detract from Eddy?s effort to make history on the world?s highest peak.<BR>> <BR>> ------<BR>> <BR>> Kay LeClaire<BR>> http://tinyurl.com/KayLeClaire<BR>> <BR>> -------------------------------------------<BR>> <BR>> Seeya at Farmers' Market, Moscow.<BR>> <BR>> Tom Hansen<BR>> Moscow, Idaho<BR>> <BR>> "The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change<BR>> and the Realist adjusts his sails."<BR>> <BR>> - Unknown<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> ------------------------------<BR>> <BR>> =======================================================<BR>> List services made available by First Step Internet, <BR>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <BR>> http://www.fsr.net <BR>> mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>> =======================================================<BR>> <BR>> End of Vision2020 Digest, Vol 35, Issue 105<BR>> *******************************************<BR><BR><br /><hr />Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. <a href='http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_BR_life_in_synch_052009' target='_new'>Check it out.</a></body>
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