Spaniard nears being first woman to climb 14 highest mountains

MADRID, May 18, 2009 (AFP)

Spaniard Edurne Pasaban on Monday moved closer to becoming the first woman to climb 14 of the world’s highest mountains after scaling Mount Kangchenjunga on the border between Nepal and India.

    The 35-year-old reached the top of the mountain, the world’s third-highest with an elevation of 8,586 metres (28,169 ft), with a group of Spanish climbers, her team said in a statement.

    The Basque climber is the first woman to climb 12 peaks that reach 8,000 metres above sea level, including the world’s two highest mountains, Everest and K2. 

    She is competing against Austria’s Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, 38, and Italy’s Nives Meroi, 47, to become the first woman to climb all 14 “eight-thousanders”.

    Pasaban, who began her bid to make history in 2001, still must climb Annapurna and Shisi Pangma to meet her goal.

    Kaltenbrunner and Meroi have so far climbed 11 of the 14 summits. 

    Meroi, who was also on the slopes of Kangchenjunga, said Monday on her Internet site that she was abandoning her attempt to climb the mountain due to the exhaustion of her climbing companion, Romano Benet.

    

The Italian still must climb mount Makalu and Annapurna in addition to Kangchenjunga in order to make history.

    Kaltenbrunner, meanwhile, is currently climbing mount Lhotse and she still must climb Everest and K2.

    

An Italian, Reinhold Messner, became the first man to climb all 14 summits in 1986.

    The first successful ascent of an “eight-thousander” was by a French expedition led by Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal who reached the summit of Annapurna on June 3, 1950.

    

The 14 summits are all located in the Himalayan (8 in Nepal) and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia.