The high priestess of the Himalayas

Elizabeth Hawley is the historian of the Himalayas, said Eric Hansen in Outside. From her home in Kathmandu, Nepal, the 87-year-old Hawley has been documenting every climbing expedition in the mountain range since 1963, some 80,000 climbs. A world traveler, Hawley came to Kathmandu in 1957 and was hooked. She came back a year later to stay for good, taking a job as a journalist for Reuters. Every day during climbing season, she gets up at “dead-on seven o’clock,” and sets to work contacting climbers through her network of outfitters and tourism officials. “I make sure I know what flight they’re arriving on,” she says. “If it’s the Thai flight, which gets in at noon, then at 1:45 I’m on the telephone to their hotel to get an appointment for the next day.”

Hawley can provide a trove of information about the weather, the topography of every peak, past climbing accidents, and record-setting climbs. Climbers have learned that she’s remarkably accurate, which is all the more remarkable when you consider that the bird-like Hawley has never actually ascended a mountain. “I like to sleep in a comfortable bed, eat hot food in a chair at a table,” she says. “I don’t like trekking at all.”

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