The Road Not Taken~ an Interview with Everest Climber Hilaree O’Neill

A professional ski mountaineer for more than 13 years climber Hilaree O'Neill started out her career at a very young age. Skiing since the age of three she spent most of her early days on the many 14,000-foot peaks near where she went to school in Colorado. "When I finished college I moved to Chamonix in France for about 5 years," she said in an interview. "And that brought in sort of the more big mountain high altitude stuff with glaciers and ice climbing and all that kind of stuff. That kind of brought all the pieces together" In 1999 she came to the attention of the North Face pro mountaineering team. Looking for elite female athlete to round out their roster TNF connected with O'Neill at the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City, UT. With solid climbing skills and a resume packed with ascents both North America and Europe she was just who they were they looking for. "And three weeks later I was on a plane to the India Himalaya," she said So that was my first big expedition and from then on I was hooked!" For more than a decade O'Neill has put in two to three trips to the Himalaya each year. And in the middle of very busy career she managed to find time to get married and give birth to two sons. As a wife and mother she's still at the top of her game as world class mountaineer. Most recently in 2012, during one of the most challenging climbing seasons ever, O'Neill made a successful ascent of Mount Everest and then climbed to the top near by Lotse another 8,000 meter peak both on the same day. On tour with the North Face speakers series O'Neill visited Madison, WI to sit down and share her story a a presentation she calls the Road Not Taken. O'Neill: It was a huge learning curve going from the states the Chamonix was the first big learning curve of getting into skiing with ropes and harnesses and all that kind of stuff and then going from the Alps to Himalayas was a massive learning curve going from both culturally and myself personally in the sport because all of the sudden now it was becoming more about the climbing and less about the skiing and so really had to focus on those climbing skills more than the skiing for the first time in my life. It was also about sustaining mental toughness over three four five six week periods and being out and exposed for long periods of time. You know a lot of winter camping, a lot of storms. So it was a very steep learning curve. You know I think right after India I went to Russia and spent...got stuck in a storm and spent six days in a snow cave with a bunch of Russians. You know like where am I? So yes it was a steep learning curve. JM: So now what motivates you to do that kind of thing. You obviously had this great opportunity, but what made you stick with it? O'Neill: I just love the satisfaction I get from the adventure of it. Expeditions really are different in that you can plan to the best of your abilities and it never turns out the way you planned it. There's always something new that you never expected, the climbing's harder or easier or just different. And that's the part of it I love. And I really like challenging myself. High altitude obviously is something that's always been a major draw for me and I like the simplicity of it. JM: So now through the course of all that you also had an opportunity to fall in love and get married and started to raise a family. You've got a husband and a family and two small boys at home. I've heard you say in previous interviews that being a parent is infinitely more difficult or more challenging a mountaineer. Well I've got to know, what is it about parenting that making is so much difficult than being a climber? O'Neill: Well parenting I think you are not always operating within your own decisions, your choices. A lot of what you're doing is at the need or the call of your children and it's just very different. To leave and go on a mountaineering trip you're choosing things. You have actually have some silence. You can sleep at night,