Long before Sharon Wood became the first North American woman to reach the top of Everest in 1986--also becoming the first woman to ever climb Everest by the difficult West Ridge, via a new route from Tibet, without Sherpa support--Sharon Wood has been in the vanguard of North American mountaineering.
Despite having a broken shoulder bone, she persevered through a multi-day alpine style climb of the Ancash Face of Huascaran Sur (6768 m/22,205 ft) in Peru. In Argentina she climbed the notorious 2700-metre French route on the South Face of Aconcagua (6,962m/22,841 ft) alpine style and she reached 8000 metres during an ascent with fellow Canadians Dwayne Congdon and Albi Sole on the difficult West Ridge of Makalu (8,463 m/27,766 ft) in Nepal.
As the first woman to become an ACMG certified Alpine guide in Canada, Wood has since become the owner of her own speaking and mountain guiding business, Adventure Dynamics, and she has co-authored an ebook with her long-time partner and photographer Pat Morrow, Everest: High Expectations (Bungalo Books, 2012), in which she describes how she and the rest of her Canadian team successfully made the ascent of the West Ridge of Everest.
Also published by Mountaineers Books in the United States (US rights sale arranged by Bill Hanna of Acacia House), her memoir, Rising (D&M, 2019), is a mountaineering story as well as a meditation on sustaining passion and purpose. Often the only woman on excursions, on the outskirts of a male pack, Wood has remained aware that her accomplishments are also on behalf of female climbers everywhere.
"Axe, axe, foot, foot, repeat," she says. "What a way to live."
She has been published in several anthologies, including Everest: Eighty Years of Triumph and Tragedy (Mountaineers Press, 2001), and now lives in Canmore, Alberta.
BOOKS:
Everest: High Expectations (Bungalo Books, 2012) by Pat Morrow & Sharon Wood
Rising (D&M, 2019) $29.95 978-1-77162-225-7
[BCBW 2019]
Despite having a broken shoulder bone, she persevered through a multi-day alpine style climb of the Ancash Face of Huascaran Sur (6768 m/22,205 ft) in Peru. In Argentina she climbed the notorious 2700-metre French route on the South Face of Aconcagua (6,962m/22,841 ft) alpine style and she reached 8000 metres during an ascent with fellow Canadians Dwayne Congdon and Albi Sole on the difficult West Ridge of Makalu (8,463 m/27,766 ft) in Nepal.
As the first woman to become an ACMG certified Alpine guide in Canada, Wood has since become the owner of her own speaking and mountain guiding business, Adventure Dynamics, and she has co-authored an ebook with her long-time partner and photographer Pat Morrow, Everest: High Expectations (Bungalo Books, 2012), in which she describes how she and the rest of her Canadian team successfully made the ascent of the West Ridge of Everest.
Also published by Mountaineers Books in the United States (US rights sale arranged by Bill Hanna of Acacia House), her memoir, Rising (D&M, 2019), is a mountaineering story as well as a meditation on sustaining passion and purpose. Often the only woman on excursions, on the outskirts of a male pack, Wood has remained aware that her accomplishments are also on behalf of female climbers everywhere.
"Axe, axe, foot, foot, repeat," she says. "What a way to live."
She has been published in several anthologies, including Everest: Eighty Years of Triumph and Tragedy (Mountaineers Press, 2001), and now lives in Canmore, Alberta.
BOOKS:
Everest: High Expectations (Bungalo Books, 2012) by Pat Morrow & Sharon Wood
Rising (D&M, 2019) $29.95 978-1-77162-225-7
[BCBW 2019]
Articles: 1 Article for this author
Everest by Pat Morrow & Sharon Wood
This richly illustrated adventure book tells the gripping story of two Canadian climbing expeditions that captured the attention of the mountaineering world in 1982 and 1986 - written by two climbers who reached Everest's summit in distinctly different ways.
Combining a powerful yet intimately told story with 150 colour photos, maps, archival video and audio recordings, "Everest: High Expectations"; sets a new standard for illustrated ebooks as it chronicles both Canadian expeditions' quest to put a new route up the world's highest peak.
In 1982, a team of Canada's best climbers confidently trekked to Everest through Nepal's post monsoon rains. Within a month, four people were dead and half the climbers had returned home. The much-diminished team salvaged the expedition by putting six climbers on the summit via the traditional South Col route but its mission was incomplete.
Four years later, a second team returned to make mountaineering history. Not only did the 1986 Canadian Everest Light Expedition establish a new route on Everest without Sherpa support, but it also put the first North American woman on top. Despite several subsequent attempts, that route (via Tibet) has never been repeated.
This book, co-written by international adventure photojournalist Pat Morrow and alpine guide Sharon Wood, provides a fascinating insiders' look at an era when climbing with style was more important than "peak bagging"; and Everest was only approached after a long mountain-climbing apprenticeship.
"High Expectations"; delivers classic high-altitude drama - a near miss in a massive avalanche, speedy alpine-style ascents from the South Col to summit, a risky nighttime descent of the Hornbein Couloir, a fiery gas explosion in a tent and weeks battling jet stream winds in an atmosphere starved of oxygen.
Both authors make candid observations on how their lives were affected by the Everest experience and offer frank assessments of the change in attitude today toward Everest and climbing standards.
This multimedia Everest book marks the 30th anniversary of Morrow's summit. It is truly a classic.
Publishers Press Release