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Miss
Helga Hengge
Last Updated 2/3/2001
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| Reached
the summit of Everest on May 27th, 1999. |
| Never
will I forget the night when we climbed to the
summit of the world, that almost full-moon night
in which the stars danced so gloriously into the
heavens. Carefully I leaned over the ridge,
pressing my down dress into the frozen snow.
Then I slowly inched forward. The mountain
seemed to emit a pure white light illuming the
night. Vast snow fields fell away slowly into
unknown depths. Millions of snow crystals
glistened through the air. It was completely
quiet, the whole world seemed to be sleeping
under the thick silver clouds blanketing the
valleys below. Never will I forget the night in
which the moon danced on the snow fields. This
was the home of the Gods in the land of the
snows - the great Himalaya. Special thanks to
Russell Brice and his team of Sherpas and
Tibetans for taking me so close to heaven. |
Climbing
resume: I started rock climbing in the summer of
1996 in the Shawangunks cliffs upstate New York.
My first mountaineering expedition was to
Aconcagua in Argentina. I went with a small
international expedition from Boulder, Colorado
and reached the summit on the 10th of January
1997. In May 1997 I went to Peru with a Swiss
expedition and climbed Chopicalqui and
Huascaran. On a British winter trekking
expedition through the Khumbu I climbed Island
Peak in December 1997. In May 1998 I climbed
Cotopaxi and Chimborazo in Ecuador with Czech
climbing friends from New York.
My
first try at an 8000 meter peak came in
September 1998. With the British outfit OTT I
reached camp 3 at 7400 meters and then turned
around in a snow storm. Still fully acclimatized
I went on to Nepal with Henry Todd's group and
climbed Ama Dablam in the middle of October.
Then in April 1999 I joined Russell Brice's
Himalayan Experience expedition to the North
Side of Mount Everest. Loppsang and me stepped
up to the summit on the 27th of May with oxygen
on the finest Himalayan morning. (I found out
later, from Liz Hawley back in Kathmandu, that I
was the first German woman to climb Mount
Everest successfully* and also the first
American woman to be successful* on the North
Side - for I have dual citizenship) In the fall
of 1999 I joined an expedition to climb Pumori
in Nepal but due to heavy snow fall we never got
out of Base Camp.
An
ambitious plan in Pakistan - to climb two 8000
meter peaks back to back - Gasherbrum 1 and 2 -
failed miserably. Continuous snow fall and
unseasonably bad weather kept us from even
reaching proper Camp 2 on Gasherbrum 2.
My
book "Nur der Himmel ist Hoeher" (Only
Heaven is Higher) came out in Germany in
September 1999 with Droemer publishing house,
available on amazon.com
- describing our adventures on Mount Everest, an
English version is in the works. I grew up in
Munich, Germany and have been living in New York
for the past ten years - working as a fashion
stylist. |
* A
successful Summit is defined as making the top, the
true Summit of a Peak. However, in both cases here, Miss
Helga Hengge is the first to make it to the
top and back
down.
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