Page 1 2 3 4

Summer 2006

^{Robert Hubner}

When she was just 15, Danielle Fisher (above) discovered her alpine addiction on Mount Rainier.

That trip wasn’t the first climb for Fisher. She ascended Mount Baker a few weeks before, and she hated it.

“I was tagging along with my dad,” she says. “He liked being in the mountains, and so did I.” But the climb was scary and challenging. At one point Danielle lost her footing and fell, posing a threat to the team to which she was roped.

A couple of weeks later, she went along on an ascent of Mount Adams, the second-highest peak in the state and a popular mountain for beginners. “It was harder,” she says. “I didn’t enjoy it at all.” Still, when her father offered to turn around, she refused.

“Two weeks later, we did Mount Rainier,” says Jerome Fisher. To their surprise, “that’s when it clicked.” Even though Danielle had injured her leg, was carrying more weight in her pack, and had to spend the night on the mountain, Rainier did the trick. Neither of the Fishers could account for the change.

Last summer, the slender 20-year-old from rural Bow, Washington, became the youngest person in the world to summit the highest mountains on all seven continents.

Since Danielle was a baby, her parents, Jerome, a former Washington State University student, and Karen (’75 Ag.), would take her and her sister, Bobbi (’05 Civ. Engr.), on outdoor trips, day hikes, and horse camping. The Cascades were familiar territory for the Fishers, who could see Mount Baker from their back yard.

After the Rainier climb six years ago, Danielle was eager for whatever the Cascades could offer. That summer, between her freshman and sophomore years of high school, she summited 12 mountains.

When Fisher took on Mount Baker again during her second summer of climbing, she tackled the north ridge, a more technical climb than her previous one. Her guide was Christine Boskott of Mountain Madness, one of the leading woman alpinists in America. “She is a strong and driven climber,” says Boskott of her young client, adding that Fisher was a good team member who took the initiative to help another climber out of a jam.

That strength showed again in her uncomplicated ascent of Everest last summer. Fisher was one of the few on her team to reach the top. “Danielle . . . seems genetically designed for high altitude, and nothing slows her down,” notes Tony Van Marken, a fellow climber who struggled to follow her up the mountain.

“She has the gift to go climb high,” says her father. Jerome Fisher realized that a few years ago on a peak in South America. Though he and Danielle at first lagged behind the other climbers, having stopped for about an hour to warm Danielle’s feet and ward off the early stages of frostbite, she caught up to and passed everyone who had gone ahead, showing no effect from the thin air.

Fisher asked his daughter if she would like to try climbing the Seven Summits--the highest points on each continent—-since she had a shot at being the youngest person to reach all seven peaks. The record holder at the time was a 23-year-old man, and the youngest woman to have climbed all seven was 33.

“I said yes,” says Fisher. “At that point, I figured I had five years to do it.”

She did it in two, joining the ranks in 2005 of an elite fellowship of world-famous climbers who got their start on Washington’s peaks—-climbers like Ed Viesturs, known around the world for his high-altitude abilities.

Viesturs first got hooked back in the 1970s on the pre-eruption Mount St. Helens. The climb’s stunning views and technical demands were thrilling enough to send the raw college freshman from Illinois back for more.

If you look around the world for alpinists, you’ll find one of the highest concentrations right here in Washington. Whether they’re born here like Fisher or drawn to the state like Viesturs, they all develop their mountain habits and hone their skills on the sharp teeth of the Cascades.

One of the most widely read adventure stories of recent history, Into Thin Air, the account of a deadly season on Mt. Everest, was written by Jon Krakauer, who lives in Seattle. Many of the book’s characters were Washington based, including a member of Krakauer’s climbing team and a guide on another team. Viesturs was there, too.

Then consider Jim Whittaker of Seattle, who in 1963 was the first American to climb to the summit of Everest, and his brother, Lou, founder of Rainier Mountaineering, Inc.

Washington was also home to writer and teacher Willi Unsoeld, one of the most famous of American climbers of the 1960s and 70s.

Page 1 2 3 4

Continued