Mountaineer Marie-Pier Desharnais is among only Canadian women to summit K2

The climber from Victoriaville, Que. conquered what’s been dubbed “the King of Mountains” on July 22 at 5:45 a.m. after an ascent of nearly 11 hours from Camp 3.“It was a long expedition, but it was a monumental challenge,” the 35-year-old Quebecer said in French from Skardu, Pakistan.

A video shared by Nepalese mountaineer Mingma Sherpa on social media shows a traffic jam that Friday in “the Bottleneck,” a steep section of the ascent that rears up more than 8,200 metres above sea level. “What was the most difficult or what scared me the most was the descent,” she said. “There are falling rocks all the time because there are other climbers above you who are sending rocks down and you end up below them on a 60-degree slope, so it’s almost vertical.”

K2 is one of the deadliest peaks over 8,000 metres, with a fatality rate of 29 per cent, according to data compiled through 2012 by mountain specialist Eberhard Jurgalski. In contrast, Mount Everest has a four per cent fatality rate, his research found. Desharnais believes her life changed at that moment, when she began to consider climbing K2, which she’d previously deemed out of reach.

“A theme that is very present in my life is resilience: personal, organizational in my work, and obviously I use it in the mountains more than ever,” said Desharnais, who works as a disaster management expert in Qatar.Article content

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Mountaineer Marie-Pier Desharnais is first Canadian woman to summit K2MONTREAL — No Canadian woman had ever ascended the second\u002Dhighest peak in the world before her.
Source: OttawaCitizen - 🏆 21. / 68 Read more »

Mountaineer Marie-Pier Desharnais is first Canadian woman to summit K2MONTREAL — No Canadian woman had ever ascended the second\u002Dhighest peak in the world before her. First Canadian woman on K2 is 62 year old Liliya Ianovskaia, also the world’s oldest woman on K2. She came in several hours before Marie Pier.
Source: OttawaCitizen - 🏆 21. / 68 Read more »

Mountaineer Marie-Pier Desharnais is first Canadian woman to summit K2MONTREAL — No Canadian woman had ever ascended the second\u002Dhighest peak in the world before her. First Canadian woman on K2 is 62 year old Liliya Ianovskaia, also the world’s oldest woman on K2. She came in several hours before Marie Pier.
Source: OttawaCitizen - 🏆 21. / 68 Read more »

Mountaineer Marie-Pier Desharnais is first Canadian woman to summit K2MONTREAL — No Canadian woman had ever ascended the second\u002Dhighest peak in the world before her.
Source: OttawaCitizen - 🏆 21. / 68 Read more »

Black excellence celebrated at National Black Canadians Summit in Halifax - Halifax | Globalnews.caMore than a thousand Canadians are converging in Halifax this weekend for the National Black Canadians Summit to discuss Black experiences and breaking down racial discrimination. And the white excellence celebration are ….? Outstanding achievement in the field of being black.
Source: GlobalNational - 🏆 81. / 51 Read more »

CityNewsExcept she didn’t. It was 62 year old Liliya Ianovskaia, who summited K2 several hours before Marie-Pier, becoming not only the first Canadian woman, but also the world’s oldest woman to summit K2 The celebratory cigarette would probably be phenomenal Congratulations Marie-Pier.
Source: CityNews Toronto - 🏆 52. / 59 Read more »