Youngest Australian to climb Mount Everest

What would you do if you had just climbed Mount Everest?

For most people the answer is simple: Get back down to safety as soon as possible.

However, if your name is Gabby Kanizay, you climb back into the “death zone: to ascend Everest’s neighbour, Lhotse.

At 8,516m, Lhotse is the world’s fourth-highest peak.

“It’s right there. Why not?” Gabby asked from Base Camp on Tuesday.

Any climb that passes 8,000m is considered “the death zone” because of the extreme conditions and low oxygen levels in the air.

Remarkably, Gabby scaled Lhotse the day after becoming the youngest Australian to reach the summit of Mount Everest, aged just 19 years and 68 days.

“It was just an incredible feeling. We’re the highest people in the world and we’ve finally done it and we’ve done it here together as well, which is amazing,” she said.

Not only did Gabby become the youngest Australian to reach Everest’s summit, she was also accompanied by her mother, Jane Kanizay, 52.

“I wasn’t expecting or prepared to be at the summit with mum,” said Gabby, who is a much faster climber than her mother.

“We’d kind of convinced ourselves that it just wasn’t possible.”

“To be there at the same time, to then stand on the summit together, was truly incredible.”

Key points:

• At 19 years of age, Gabby Kanizay has become the youngest Australian to climb Mount Everest
• Gabby and her mother, Jane Kanizay, became one of the few mother-daughter pairings to reach the summit together
• One day after conquering Everest, Gabby then climbed the world’s fourth-highest mountain

While Jane said she’s now hanging-up her crampons, Gabby is planning to spend the next year climbing in Europe and is keen to return to the Himalayas to tackle more 8,000m peaks.

There are only 14 mountains in the world above 8,000m and Gabby has now climbed three of them.

“I think Tendi (climbing Sherpa), and everyone here, is pretty keen to keep doing 8,000m peaks with me,” she said.

“So I’ll see how many of the 8,000m peaks I can get done, because I do love the high-altitude climbing”

Source
Guy Stayner
ABC News