The Girl Who Climbed Everest

by Sue Williams

  That was a sentiment that enormously impressed Queensland coffee magnate Phil Di Bella, who came on board as a sponsor after reading about her on social media and then meeting with her and Glenn. ‘I was surprised what a good speaker she is,’ he says. ‘She’s very quiet, she doesn’t talk much, and she’s not terribly animated, but she has an intenseness and focus about her that’s very engaging. You can see the tenacity in her eyes. She’s comfortable in her own skin, scans the room, and then speaks with great confidence and passion.’

  Di Bella started his coffee business in 2002 at the age of twenty-six. Back then, everyone told the Brisbane barista he was mad to enter such a competitive industry. He ignored the naysayers, holding fast to his belief in himself. ‘There’s only the future,’ he’d say as his mantra. ‘Don’t worry about what happened in the past.’ His willingness to back himself paid off: he now owns and runs one of Australia’s biggest specialty coffee companies, with about 2.2 million people a week throughout the country drinking his coffee, and in 2013 made number fifteen on the BRW magazine Young Rich List. He has huge respect for other young people similarly backing themselves to achieve. He does a lot of work for youth charities, and sponsors a number of young people. Alyssa is among his most prized.

  ‘What immediately struck me about her is how determined she is, how thoughtful and how passionate,’ says Di Bella. ‘But she doesn’t come with a lot of hype. She’s not Muhammad Ali, she’s more a Mike Tyson in his young days. She doesn’t say much, but what she does say is meaningful. She has that mental toughness, as well as a physical toughness, coupled with real endurance, and she’s wise beyond her years.’

  When two years ago he launched a canned coffee energy drink, Espresso Kick+, Alyssa became one of its ambassadors. Since then, they’ve been in monthly contact, with Di Bella mentoring Alyssa and helping her with media exposure, as well as organising fundraising events for her.

  Mountain Designs, a company selling outdoor clothes and equipment, also came to the party, going through Alyssa’s list of the gear she needed, and providing much of it for her. ‘We stumbled upon Alyssa a long time ago as a customer of ours and we got to know her through all her amazing adventures,’ says company spokesperson Tyng Huang. ‘She was pretty young then, so in a sense, we’ve grown with her. She’s still young, and we decided to sponsor her as we love her willingness to give things a go. We’re not just about hardcore outdoor activities; we’re also about getting out there and challenging yourself, and Alyssa’s a perfect example of that.’

  Apart from those occasional bonuses, Alyssa and Glenn focused on financing each trip before it happened. ‘We do that through sponsors, some people donate, if I do a talk, people will pay for that and that will help,’ says Alyssa. ‘We do a bit of everything, really. Mountain climbing can be very expensive. As I’m getting to my goal, the trips mean longer periods of time away, they’re more involved, the gear costs a lot more. And my dad helps fund a lot of it as well. A branding company is now trying to help us get bigger sponsors.’

  The grand total cost of an assault on Everest, Glenn has calculated, will be around $150 000, including the costs of sending Alyssa on two training climbs beforehand, with airfares, insurance, permits, the cost of joining an expedition, Sherpas and equipment. Everest alone would be $70 000. ‘If all else fails, I’ll remortgage our house to pay for it,’ says Glenn. ‘We can’t get all this way to fall at the final hurdle.’

  Some people suggested Glenn and Alyssa should approach mining companies in Queensland who were keen to improve the public perception of their work by giving back to communities. But Alyssa wasn’t keen. ‘They might even give me the cash in one hit,’ she says. ‘But I’m not comfortable having such a strong link with mining. The companies have got a lot of money, but many people feel they’re killing the land. And if anything goes wrong, I wouldn’t want to be trotted out for them.’

  The rest of Alyssa’s living expenses were quite minimal. She wasn’t interested in clothes, jewellery, make-up, boys or going out, like most teens tend to be. Her clothes were stored in a suitcase in her bedroom, and her cuttings were in plastic bags. The only decorations were a few artefacts she had from Nepal – photos, the Everest calendar, Buddhist prayer flags, a gauze prayer scarf and some letters from people she treasured, and had framed. One was from elderly Kokoda veteran George Palmer, whom she’d previously met at a dinner for veterans and Kokoda trekkers. ‘You are certainly a very brave young lady to be taking on these future trips,’ he wrote.

  After all, Alyssa felt she didn’t need much: most of her hours were spent in the gym, training, or speaking to try to raise more money. She also studied at home, either at Glenn’s or at her mum’s, where she occasionally stayed.

  Glenn and Therese’s separation was proving tough for everyone. It was tricky juggling lives between the two homes. Alyssa now saw less of her mum and older sister, but Therese would try to provide just a little more balance in Alyssa’s life by buying her, every birthday and Christmas, ‘girly’ presents, like jewellery, handbags and make-up. Alyssa was seeing more of her younger siblings, though, since they came to stay so often. Glenn had been working hard on his businesses, but now he decided to re-prioritise.

  An old army mate of his, Ritchie Gibson, who’d qualified with him as a physical trainer, served with him in East Timor and had been a volunteer on the support crew of the Townsville-Brisbane run, had a chat. He’d long been an admirer of Glenn for his ability to keep reinventing himself and liked the way he seemed to have little to no fear of failure. In turn, he’d come to have enormous respect for Alyssa, too.

  ‘They’re both people determined to achieve, despite any obstacles or roadblocks in the way,’ he says. ‘Not many people in life inspire me, but Glenn’s definitely one of those. Once he’s made up his mind to do something, nothing stops him. And Alyssa’s grown up to be exactly the same.’

  After the army, Gibson became a business entrepreneur as well as getting into motivational speaking and goal-setting. It was in this capacity he came to gave Glenn a hand. He told him that men spell love with the letters M-O-N-E-Y; they see it as all about a house and providing for their kids, and actually spending time with their family comes last. Women and kids, on the other hand, spell love T-I-M-E.

  ‘I could see the sense of that,’ Glenn says. ‘When I train people, I ask clients their priorities. They usually say number one family, number two health and fitness and number three career. Then I make them look at their diaries – and they soon realise they’re living their life as if the reverse is true. It’s all about work, and family comes third. For busy blokes, if it’s not written in their schedule, then it has no importance. They never write in a time to take the kids to the park. If they did, it would change their core business, and the way they look at their life. I realised I was exactly the same.

  ‘The kids would come to me and I’d got into the habit of saying, We’ll go to the park, but I just have to do a few things first. So I’d do all those things, one thing would lead to another, and it’d be time for afternoon naps, and then we’d go to the park. People knew I was always available on the phone or email, so they’d come first.’

  So he took the decision to change the way he does things. ‘Now I never answer the phone or emails on a Sunday,’ he says. ‘My kids come first. If we’re going to the park, we’ll go there first. When I turn my phone back on, I might have a huge number of texts and messages and emails, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s good to be uncontactable sometimes. We’re all living at a million miles an hour and constantly multi-tasking, and it can’t be good for our brains.’

  On the weeks Christian and Samantha come to stay, Glenn picks them up from school and then stays home with them, rather than returning to work. He plays with them, reads to them, baths them and watches Dr Who with Samantha because it’s her favourite show in the world. ‘I’m very close to them,’ he says. ‘I feel like I’ve had a second chance with Sammy. She seems to be really artist
ic and she’s won art awards already at school. She loves to draw, and whereas other kids might draw flowers or trees, she draws pictures of Alyssa on the side of mountains.

  ‘With Brooklyn, we’ve drifted a little since the separation and that affects me a lot, so I’m trying to get closer to her. She’s always been very different to Alyssa. She is a nurturing soul and amazing with her younger brother and sister. She has a deep caring side to her and also a very artistic side that I hope she fully explores one day.

  ‘I love spending time with Brooklyn when I get the chance, and I encourage her to reach for her dreams. One day I know she’ll find her “thing” and nothing will hold her back.

  ‘Christian is different because of who he is and the problems he has, but he’s an amazing little human in his own right. He has challenges, he needs medication and anything that can go wrong goes wrong for him, but he knows the name of every adult who works at his school, whether they have something to do with him or not, and he celebrates every train track and flag he sees. I’ve always said to people, I don’t know if I would change him if I had that option now, because that is who he is. But you do worry what life is going to be like for him when we’re no longer around.’

  After the final separation came formal proceedings, and the divorce was set to be granted towards the end of the year. It saddened Glenn enormously but both he and Therese were working hard to stay on good terms.

  ‘Alyssa has no time for boyfriends,’ he says. ‘Maybe she looks at her mum and my relationship and thinks all relationships are bad . . . But hopefully she’ll grow out of that.’

  The 24-hour Aussie 10 challenge comes up in May 2013 and Alyssa is pumped. It will mean doing the whole circuit in one go, non-stop, with no camping or resting, so she sees it as a great mental and physical challenge. In the Himalaya, her body will need to handle cold temperatures, minimal to no food for long periods, exhaustion, little sleep and often continuous movement, and this will be excellent practice. In addition, the final part of the climb up Everest, from Camp IV at the start of the Death Zone to the summit, takes around twenty-two hours – eighteen up and between three and four back. That’s truly a race against time; after twenty-four hours, a climber’s oxygen will have started to run out, and altitude sickness will have set in badly.

  So Alyssa feels this will be a good way to prepare for that, going twenty-four hours non-stop around Australia’s highest peaks. She knows she can train all she wants in the gym and in the hills, but at some point she has to get out in the mountains and climb – and where better to test her fitness, endurance and mental toughness? Plus, there’s always the excitement of being in mountains, any mountains, no matter how lofty or low. For it’s among mountains that Alyssa realises she now feels her happiest, and most at home.

  The plan is to go with her dad and two other men who’ve trained with him in the past. One, however, pulls out on the eve of their departure. The other is keen athlete and former adventure travel company director James Holden, who’s previously walked the Kokoda Track seven times – including once in thirty hours and, in 2012, in just twenty-four. He hasn’t done much walking in Koscuiszko before, and thought it sounded a bit of fun.

  Alyssa is interviewed by ABC radio early in the morning and then falls asleep instantly in the car on their way to the park, just as soldiers are trained to do in any downtime they have – another habit she’s learnt from Glenn. As soon as they arrive at 8 a.m., they get out and start walking. It’s chilly but the weather’s fine and there’s no sign of rain or snow. It takes three hours to hit the first peak, Mount Twynam, then five of the other peaks are nearby: Carruthers Peak, Alice Rawson Peak, Mount Townsend, Abbott Peak and Byatts Camp.

  Watching Alyssa, Holden is surprised how relaxed she is. Once she starts walking, he notices she goes at her own pace, and doesn’t stop, with the kind of airy nonchalance others might have going for a walk in the park.

  The longest part of the trek is to the top of Mount Kosciuszko, and the three have a thirty-minute break on the summit. Then they don big down jackets against the cold and, in the darkness of night, switch on their head torches, ready to ascend the last three peaks. One by one they knock them off – the unnamed peak on Etheridge Ridge, Rams Head North and Rams Head. By now Alyssa feels exhausted, but there’s still the three-hour trek to the finish, which had also been the start.

  For her, that’s the hardest part. She feels she’s done the challenge, but there’s still a way to go. By the time they pass the finish line at 1 a.m., only seventeen hours have passed – seven less than their target. Holden, who was the fastest of the three, while Glenn was the slowest, is impressed. Alyssa has never once got cranky, complained or gave any indication she didn’t want to be there. On the contrary – despite the freezing temperature, the killer pace and everyone’s exhaustion, she always looked happy and excited. For her, he concludes, it’s seemed like a normal day out, like other kids might have a day at the seaside, and she doesn’t seem to have felt it at all.

  Unbeknownst to him, however, Alyssa is suffering; it’s just that she chooses not to show it. She has such bad blisters on her feet, from the straps keeping the boots closed against snow, she can barely walk. She just takes one step at a time, and focuses on getting to the end. ‘I get into a rhythm and zone when I walk, and I just make sure I stay in that,’ she says. ‘I also believe you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, so it’s an opportunity to practise that too. When I got home I was shattered, but it felt good to have achieved that. We didn’t expect to be able to do it in seventeen hours, but we did have good weather.

  ‘That’s the thing I love about the mountains. They really test someone’s character. You’re put under pressure and who you are really becomes obvious. All pretensions are stripped away. You can’t hide. All that’s left are your true qualities, and they’re the only things that count. It can be quite confronting. You see some big, strong guys fall apart on mountains because they can be so physically challenging and it’s uncomfortable and everything’s beyond your control. Then you see others you wouldn’t think could cope triumphing over the odds.

  ‘Mountains are a true test of character, and that’s just one of the reasons I love them so much.’

  CHAPTER 20

  Everest’s Most Unusual Champion:

  Bo Parfet

  One of the most unlikely Everest climbers of all time, and one of the men Alyssa most admires as a result, is American Bo Parfet.

  He was a 104-kg Wall Street corporate financier working 100-hour weeks and living on a steady diet of Coca-Cola and cheeseburgers when he first got the urge to climb a mountain. He was unhappy and dissatisfied with his life, and wanted to find excitement and adventure.

  So he flew to Tanzania and started climbing Kilimanjaro. After food poisoning, exhaustion and horribly sore feet, he finally just about made it to the top, and his passion for climbing was born. Since then, he’s climbed the Seven Summits, including Everest in 2007, and written the best-selling book, Die Trying, about his triumphs and mishaps.

  Dodging avalanches, stumbling his way through the Khumbu Icefall, nearly not making it across a ladder suspended over a dizzyingly deep crevasse and burying a dead team-mate . . . He seems to have ten lives.

  ‘I like the fact that he was in a business but wasn’t enjoying it, so was determined to try something new,’ says Alyssa. ‘So he just caught a plane and threw himself at a mountain, without any training or preparation. That’s not so wise, as he found out, but I admire him for having the courage to change his life so massively.

  ‘I believe so much in positive thinking and chasing your dreams, it’s great to read about someone who did just that, and decided to move away from their nine-to-five life to find something else, and in the process become so dedicated to climbing mountains. He just really went for what he wanted, and I like that!’

  In return, Parfet has become Alyssa’s newest fan. ‘She’s tough!’ he says. ‘But she’ll have to be extremely tough to
pull this off. Physically, a human being at seventeen hasn’t yet hit their peak strength; they haven’t matured physically yet, which will be a hurdle she’ll have to surmount.

  ‘Also, mentally, I don’t think scientifically or biologically speaking she’ll have developed the toughest mental perspective possible. That’ll come later, in her twenties, thirties or forties. In addition, there’s her emotional state. The hardest part of being on a long trip is being away from your support system, away from the nest, away from your parents, and away from the womb of home. There’s also the loneliness that kicks in – that’s off the charts. I can’t tell you how many people leave Base Camp in that first fifteen days. The loneliness really starts to get to you there.

  ‘And, lastly, there’s also the spiritual side. You definitely have to believe in something bigger than yourself, whether that’s a mountain god or goddess, Allah, Jesus Christ or Buddha. You have to embrace some kind of spirituality. If you don’t, it’s so much harder to climb.’

  And Parfet knows all about how hard climbing can be. Each time he set off for a new mountain, he had no idea whether his body would allow him to make it. He was ill-prepared and ill-equipped for the series of challenges that lay in wait for him. When he made his first attempt on Everest in 2005, a member of his expedition and good friend Scotsman Rob Milne suddenly collapsed 400 metres from the summit and died of a heart attack. Then Parfet’s second bottle of oxygen didn’t work. Finally, bad weather closed in.