Group leader Hilaree Nelson, the first woman to summit Mt. Everest and its neighboring mountain Lhotse in a single 24-hour period, recounts the tough decisions she had to make to keep her team together, Hear the harrowing story of the National Geographic team’s climb to the summit of Burma’s Hkakabo Razi mountain.
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Combining a passion for exploration, mountains and skiing, Hilaree has traveled to some of the most exotic mountain ranges on earth. Outside Magazine named her one of the most adventurous women in the world of sports.
She is the first woman to climb two 8,000m peaks in 24 hours (Everest and Lhotse). She’s also skied from the Himalayan summit of Cho Oyu in Tibet and climbed and skied several high peaks in Bolivia and Argentina. Elsewhere, Hilaree has cut turns on remote volcanoes in the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Lebanon, as well as many first descents in the tight couloirs of Baffin Island.
Born and raised in the Northwest, Hilaree began skiing at age 3 at Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. Eventually she moved to the Chamonix Valley of France where she learned most of what she needed to know in order to take her skiing skills to the next level- ski mountaineering.
In addition to her work for The North Face, Hilaree is a mother to two young boys, and although they have changed her life dramatically, her passion for the mountains has not abated. She lives in Telluride, Colorado and finds her sanity in the beautiful San Juan Mountains.