Peak Danger ft. Cecilie Skog

In today's episode we had the incredible opportunity to speak with Cecilie Skog. Cecilie has cemented her place in the world of extreme adventure sports as being the first person in the world to have skied across both the North and the South Poles and to have climbed all of The Seven Summits. She completed the first unassisted and unsupported trek across the continent of Antarctica and has made several treks across Greenland. Cecilie was also among the 31 climbers who were on K2 on its deadliest day in August 2008. She survived one of the worst tragedies in Himalayan history, witnessed her husband lose his life on the mountain - and has persevered. Listen to Extreme: Peak Danger HEREFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to this week’s partners! BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off. Lume Deodorant: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with@lumedeodorant and get 15% off with promo code NPAD at LumeDeodorant.com! #lumepodQuince: Use our link to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Hi, everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. We're so excited to have you all here this week. We're doing something a little bit different as we're doing an interview for our Monday episode. We are. We just wrapped up with an incredible woman named Cecilia, and you are going to hear everything from how she got into her passion of extreme sports and mountaineering to her climbs around the world. Yes, we're so excited to bring this interview to you all. Cecilia is an incredibly accomplished high-altitude mountaineer who has climbed the tallest peaks on every continent and has skied across both the North and South Poles. Cecilia grew up in Norway, surrounded by mountains, which, from her words, she became completely obsessed with as a teenager.

• 1:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  As she became more comfortable recreating in the outdoors, her passion led her all over the world. She took climbing courses, trained as a guide, and became a nurse. However, nursing fell to the wayside as she discovered her deep love for the outdoors, and instead, she furthered her outdoor career as a professional mountaineer. While her outdoor accomplishments are endless,

• 2:04Danielle LaRock?

  And ongoing, she has recently became a speaker on the podcast Extreme Peak Danger, where she details her experience on the second tallest mountain in the world, K2 in Pakistan. Cecilia was involved in the tragic mountaineering accident that occurred on K2 in 2008, which resulted in the deaths of 11 climbers, one of whom was her husband Rolf Bey. Today, she joins us to discuss her experiences as a mountaineer, the expedition on K2, along with the incredible achievements she has completed around the world. Cecilia Skog, welcome to National Park After Dark.

• 2:59Danielle LaRock?

  Hello, Cecilia, and welcome to National Park After Dark. Thank you so much for being here.

• 3:04Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 3:06Danielle LaRock?

  To say you are an incredibly accomplished person in the realm of outdoor recreation feels like a statement that kind of falls embarrassingly short, given your extensive resume. You have done so much in the world of professional adventuring, mountaineering, climbing and guiding, but we know that you weren't just born that way with all of that experience. So can you give us a little bit of insight into your life growing up and how you fell in love with extreme adventuring?

• 3:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I I grew up in a part of Norway, situated on the west coast of Norway, where there is beautiful surroundings, really nice peaks, sharp peaks. So that was the scenery outside my window, but it was just the scenery for me until I was in my teenagers. The first time I visited one of these tall mountains, I was 40, yeah, in my teenage sometime. I can't exactly remember what age, but I visited together with some friends. And that first climb did so

• 4:14Speaker 04

  much to me. It was like a big change just there from these sceneries that I just had looked at from my window. I was just I felt so much home there in these mountains. I was scared because there was so much air around. I could absolutely feel that I had to be really careful. I watched like every step I took, but the feeling of achievement and the view. And looking back to the city where I grew up, like the opposite view that I used to have. And being there with my friends, it was absolutely life changer.

• 4:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  How did you go from out hiking around in where you grew up to starting to climb? And and going out into these extreme heights and weather conditions? How did you make that change?

• 5:07Speaker 04

  Well, after that first visit uh to one of these tall mountains where you have to. It's not climbing, but it's scrambling. I just wanted to visit again and again and again. So that uh next summer I visited. Every day when I was walking around in my little village. If the weather was good and I could look at the mountains, I could like hear them calling. Hello, where are you? Come visit again. Yeah, I've I felt a home there in these mountains. But one day I wanted to go to that mountain and I I looked at a really beautiful mountain. But somebody told me that, no, we can't go there because there is a big glacier.

• 5:52Speaker 04

  We have to cross and we don't know how to do that. So I decided that I want to learn how to cross the glacier. So I joined a course and I, after a while, I became a glacier instructor. So that was my summer job, guiding tourists on different glaciers on the west coast. And being there with having new friends that have the same interests as me, the passion of being in the mountains. We decided that we wanted to go outside Norway where the mountains were higher. So that's how I joined some friends and we decided to first climb or walk.

• 6:35Speaker 04

  It's really a walk, we're in France. And I think I was twenty one and on that little trip, it's only like a day and a half. But we're up at eight, uh, four thousand eight hundred meters. And I could feel that my body adapted really fast to the altitude. And when we'd been climbing in Norway, I wasn't the strongest or I didn't carry the heaviest backpack or anything. But suddenly there in the thin, thin air, I felt really strong. I could compare myself to the rest of the group and so that's a good feeling.

• 7:15Speaker 04

  Suddenly being strong and have capacity to, to help and to really enjoy what we did.

• 7:22Danielle LaRock?

  Well, it seems like you really, really enjoyed what you did because fast forward a few years. And by two thousand and six, you were dubbed the first woman to ever reach the seven highest peaks on all seven continents and ski the two poles. So first of all, congratulations, we are in the presence of greatness right now. That is unbelievably impressive. Can you explain what a huge feat that was and that feeling of accomplishment afterwards?

• 7:50Speaker 04

  Well, I kind of look at it a little bit different. It was, uh, it was my life. I also became a nurse at that time, but the seasons I worked inside the hospital became uh shorter and shorter. Cause I wanted to be on the glacier, I wanted to be out there with my friends and to climb. And I, we were so curious, how high can we go and how can we plan that? And to me it was, um, when I was, wasn't on my own expeditions or my own journeys. I guided other people, which I all also uh used to love a lot. I still do actually.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  So it was just like the mountains got just all the time a little bit higher and the journey. And the ski trips a little bit longer and I was so curious to see all the different. Parts, all the different horizons, all the different parts in in the world. So, one day I I came home from uh I came home from guiding Greenland, uh crossing across Greenland. And I told my mom that, Mom, I really want to go to Antarctica. I really want to go to the South Pole. Cause I just want that kind of the trip to not end so fast. I just wanna continue and to try to have a heavier sled and to be out the whole season.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  And then I and I also said, and then after that, I would really love to see the polar ocean. I wanna go to the North Pole. And then she said, but isn't the North Pole and the South Pole more or less the same?

• 9:28Speaker 04

  It's it's uh it's totally different. It's so different and and it is. So I just feel so, and I also felt at that time so fortunate to be to have these to have this passion. Uh I I felt really lucky to feel that I was so drawn to it. I was so curious and to sit there and look at maps and to plan the journeys with my friends. My boyfriend was uh so meaningful. It was a direction. When I got out of bed in, I didn't get out of bed, I jumped out of bed. I'm so ready for for the next day and to be in this adventure.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  And I really, I felt I was living a dream.

• 10:20Speaker 05

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• 10:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  When you say that you spoke to your mom about your plans, did she, did she have interest in these type of things? Or what was her reaction when you said you wanted to go all of these places?

• 11:03Speaker 04

  No, she, she's, she's very different. She became a mom when she was 16. I was born, I was only 1.6 kilos, 1600 grams when I was born. She had so much struggle with me the first years because if I cried, I fainted from exhaustion of crying. So she really had to train, train me when I was little to be able to walk up a little hill because of my lungs were not developed right.

• 11:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  So I think she's always been kind of protective. She didn't say that I wasn't allowed to go anywhere, but she didn't cheer for it either. She, I think she wanted me to stay home.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  But I listened to her one time when she came with me to one of my speeches and a man came up to her and asked her, and she didn't even know that I was there because I was behind her back talking to someone else. But I could hear it. He was, he asked her, how did you let your daughter do all these things? And then she said, do you have kids? Yes, I have kids, he said. Do you want them to be happy? Of course I do. That's all parents do, yeah. And so do I, she said. And I was like, yeah.

• 12:29Speaker 04

  So she, I could feel that she was with me on my trips, on my journeys. But she wasn't like, she didn't give me any more attention than my siblings. We were, we just did whatever we wanted. But I, I could feel that she was with me. But I always had, I felt bad putting her in a situation where she had to be scared of me not coming back.

• 12:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Right. It sounds like she was pretty supportive and just like you said, she just wanted you to be happy. And I think it's really interesting that a man asked how she could let you go out and do these things.

• 13:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  But at the same time, there's, there's so many women who do want to go out and do these things. And when you were going to all these different continents, going to the highest peaks in the world, did you know that you were the first woman to do all of them or did it just happen?

• 13:29Speaker 04

  Well, I, I knew cause I, I knew that there hadn't been anyone that had tried. So that was kind of just a hook where we could like place that expedition for, cause we, we needed sponsors. Cause it's quite, it's expensive to, to go to many of these remote places. Uh, so we needed sponsors. We needed someone to come with us, like a partner. So it was kind of a hook to kind of place this on. But it, it, when I'm out there and when I'm just doing my everyday life there on the polar ocean

• 14:11Speaker 04

  or on the high mountain, it's, it's not important there. The only, that's not my focus when I'm out. It's not even motivating, actually. It's all the other things. It's the scenery, it's the curiosity, it's the being the best partner and the nature. That itself couldn't motivate me that much.

• 14:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  Just being out there.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  And anyway, if, if you're, if you have a first ascent of something, it's, I don't see the big difference in like, if a lot of people have been there before and you're there for the first time, it's, it's the first time for me anyway. So it, it doesn't change my present when I'm there.

• 14:56Danielle LaRock?

  Right.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  You know, if you understand.

• 14:59Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, definitely. Can you tell me what it feels, what it feels like for you when you do ascend and you reach the summit of these peaks that you've been dreaming about?

• 15:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's different if you reach a pole, like the North Pole, South Pole, or even the crossing, then when you're at the end of your kind of your geographically target, it's not only, it's not only the goal to reach it, there is so many other goals being out there, but when you're there, then you're kind of finished. Somebody will pick you up there. But when you're on the top of a mountain, when you're on the highest point, you're only halfway. So that's always in the back of my head. Now, it's the most dangerous and difficult part. It's getting back safely.

• 15:50Danielle LaRock?

  Right. So focusing, we know that, you know, you've gone to all the highest peaks in the world, but we do know that after you summited Everest, you returned to the same area later to tackle K2. Can you tell us a little bit about what differentiates and makes K2 different than Everest? Because a lot of our listeners are very familiar with Mount Everest, but not so much with K2.

• 16:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know how it is now, because I think the last years it's been happening

• 16:24Speaker 04

  com- commercialization, is that how you say it? Of K2 as well, that people go there and they join like a group of people that pay to be a part of a team. Like, it's been on Everest for a very long time. But in 2005, when we were there for the first time, we were there 96 days climbing up and down. We brought 3,500 meters of rope ourselves and fixed every centimeter of it. And in 2008, it's you're there as climbers and you climb it together with the other teams. There

• 17:04Speaker 04

  were no, not normally, not originally, a culture for, for bringing like Sherpas and climbers that would help you and fix the ropes for you.

• 17:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, it was something you were doing yourself. You didn't pay someone to do it for you.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's not like the culture of guiding wasn't hadn't started in 2008.

• 17:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  And you said you were your first time that you were on K2, you were there for 96 days?

• 17:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's a long time.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  That was actually six days more than we were allowed to be there. So we had to have help from the Norwegian Embassy to get back home.

• 17:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, wow.

• 17:44Speaker 04

  We had a limit of 90 days, but we stretched it. And that was only because we were waiting for the good weather. And we turned around so many times, like 11 times in Camp 2 and three times in Camp 3. And we got to know that mountain so well. But we didn't get to see the top part of the mountain or from from Camp 3 and above. So when we went home in 2005, I think we knew that one day we were gonna go back.

• 18:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  Because you didn't that during that trip, you didn't get to the summit?

• 18:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow. And for 96 days, can you explain a little bit? Because I know that when you are climbing and altitude's that high, you can't just hike up. You your body has to acclimate. Can you explain a little bit of what that feeling is like? When you're up at that high of an elevation, what it's like to hike and breathe and the toll it has on your body?

• 18:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, you have to give your body time to acclimate, to build more red blood cells that can carry oxygen around the body. And that takes time. So you have to be really patient in the beginning. Otherwise, you can develop high altitude sickness. So we walk really slow. We do that also to to not stress the body, to give the body more energy. So it can start all these processes that it needs to develop to acclimate.

• 19:16Speaker 04

  So we walk slow also, uh because it's harder to breathe.

• 19:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  Um hum.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  So it takes time, but after a while you start, you feel comfortable around five thousand meter where base camp is. And then you start pushing up on the mountain. You you walk up a few hundred meters and then you go back down. Maybe you have a little uh something to carry up. You leave that on the mountain, go back down, sleep. Next time you go up, maybe you uh fix camp one and leave things there. Maybe you put up a tent. You can sleep there and then you go back down and then you go back up again. And then you carry something to camp two and then you go back to camp one, sleep there maybe and then. So you climb the mountain like many times.

• 20:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  Over and over again until.

• 20:07Speaker 04

  Over and over again. And then suddenly there's been an avalanche in the bad weather, so all the tents are gone next time you come up. So you have to start over again. So that's how that life is sweet. But there will be periods with the bad weather on the mountain. When you're there. But that's okay. Then you crawl back to base camp. And you have, uh you visit other expedition teams or other teams there. Uh you go and drink tea, maybe you watch a movie and that's it's a little community there suddenly. With um everybody there with the same interest and same passion. And it's it's really nice.

• 20:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  I imagine you meet a lot of friends.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, and because we went to high mountains uh many times during one year. How often we met a lot of people, the same people over and over again. So they become really good friends. And it's nice to catch up there. You have so much time to talk and just to wait. Until the weather will let you back up on the mountain again.

• 21:18Cassandra Yahnian?

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• 22:49Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, so in 2008, when you returned to K2, as you just outlined, there are so many different factors that need to align to make a successful climb. The preparation, the weather, different conditions and things like that, all in perfect alignment. So how long were you on K2 the second time around before you actually vied for the summit?

• 23:12Speaker 04

  I think in 2008, we were there for maybe 60 days. Yeah, I think we started to track in in June and then we tried, or yeah, summited 1st of August. So about two months, I think.

• 23:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  And when I was looking at K2, there is a short window of time where the weather allows you to do that, that, right? There's only a couple of months in summer where the weather is good enough to be up there.

• 23:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. And it happens the same, more or less the same period every year, August, sometimes in August.

• 23:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  And when you went up the second time, were you there with people who you had been with in 2005?

• 24:00Speaker 04

  We were the same, we were four in our team. It was me and my, my husband, Rolf. When we were there in 2005, we're only boyfriend and girlfriend. And it was Einstein, he was also there in 2005. But Lash was a new member of the team.

• 24:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay, so you mentioned on August 1st is the day that you finally summited K2. What was that feeling like?

• 24:24Speaker 04

  It had been a really different night. It'd been a night by 2008, I had been on five other 8,000 meter peaks. And I'd never had that feeling anywhere before. It was a gut feeling that I, I wasn't comfortable with. So reaching the summit, it was, it was amazing to see the shadow into China, the shadow of the mountain into China. And it was sunset, it was beautiful. And reaching the summit with Lash was fantastic. But I

• 25:04Speaker 04

  also had that gut feeling. And I wanted to turn around and climb back to Rolf that was waiting for us a few hundred meter below the summit. So I don't think we were up there many minutes. We just looked at the view and gave each other a hug, took two pictures, and then we turned around.

• 25:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  And you turned around and you went back. Rolf had waited that day. I had heard, or I had seen that he decided not to summit with you, but he was waiting. Was he really excited for you when you got back to him that you? Made it to the summit?

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was excited. Uh, when he saw us uh continue and he said, I'll just wait for you here. He said, come on, you go, go, go, you can do it.

• 25:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Cheering you on.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  Cheering us up. And uh when we go back to him, he was so, he was so glad. He's so happy, he was happy for us, he was happy for the team. And uh and then he said, but now let's get back down.

• 26:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. You mentioned that you had a gut feeling that day that something wasn't quite right or something felt off. Do you know, were you the only one who felt that? Or do you know of others who had a similar feeling?

• 26:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I I assume, or I know that uh in my team uh we all felt. Cause it wasn't just a gut feeling. It was all the different incident that had happened earlier that morning where there were supposed to be ropes uh in the bottleneck. There were no ropes in the bottleneck. The but uh the rope was uh put on the shoulder where it's flat. And so there were so many different incident that happened that it wasn't right. There were so many things that wasn't right and it was so warm. I I almost couldn't wear my down jacket.

• 27:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  And it was uh the queue. I'd never walked in a queue before on an eight thousand meter peak like that. And we had to wait and wait. And there was, there was one like big step where you have to climb like maybe three meters of steep uh snow or ice. It's really easy, uh but we had to wait forever for for people to get up that. And it's like, yeah, uh there was so many things that were, didn't feel right. And it didn't look right. And it wasn't right.

• 27:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, and when you say that it was really warm that day, the first thing that I think of with warm weather and a lot of snow on a mountain, obviously, you're, you must have all started worrying about the changes in the snow. Um, that could be happening as you were walking up there.

• 28:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  Going forward, we know, of course, that you were part of the podcast Peak Danger, which is going into the story of the tragedy that did happen that day on K2 and everything that unfolded. So we won't go into deep detail of what happens that day. People can listen there if they want to, but you were involved in the tragedy that ended up being one of the deadliest days in mountaineering on K2. How has that affected the way that you mountaineer now?

• 28:37Speaker 04

  I could see my husband's head torch disappear into the dark. He was standing 20 meters away from me. And suddenly there, it feels like a big earthquake. And it's the ice breaking from above and falling down. And it cuts a rope between us and he disappears. And a lot of people have asked me how I go back, how I don't climb that mountain without him. And I've told many people, I don't, I'm not sure.

• 29:23Speaker 04

  I don't remember that much. There is so many times on the way down from 8,500 meter down to base camp, where I have to go in and out of rope, hundreds maybe of times. I have to go in and out of the rope on a rappel. And I don't remember many of them. But I remember the phone call I had to make in Camp 3, when I had to call my parents-in-law and tell them that they've lost their only child. Of course, the worst phone call you can take. And my father-in-law, he was...

• 30:03Speaker 04

  He was prepared. Uh, the whole world knew what had been going on on that mountain. That there were eleven people missing after that night. So he told me, you have to climb safe down. You have to come back to us, cause now we only have you. So that's what I I did. I um, I went home to my parents in law and I had to get out of bed. Cause now they only had me and I wanted to take care of them. And most days I did actually get out of bed, not all, but most days. But it wasn't me that took care of them, they took care of me.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  Together with Rolf, everything was possible. That's the, that's the feeling that he sent to other people around him, that everything's possible. And I, we knew that we were very fortunate to be able to to share uh, our life. And to share all the trips, all the nights in the tent and all our dreams and our passion. We knew that we were lucky. So most days I did get out of bed, but it was difficult because he wasn't there anymore. But what I did find after, after the accident was that I still like to be outdoors. It's easier to breathe. Just uh, I got out of bed, I got into the my car.

• 31:31Speaker 04

  And I drove out to the beaches that were outside where we used to live. And the sky was sometimes high and blue and and it was easier to breathe there than inside the house. I didn't have much energy, but I was just sitting there in the sand dunes and watching the the waves hit that beach somewhere and.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  I didn't know anything about the future. I if I was if I if I thought about it, it just made me very sad. That maybe I will not even sleep one more night in a tent. I don't know what's gonna happen in the future. But I knew that that next wave was gonna hit that beach somewhere. So the months went by and yeah, Rolf disappeared first of August. So normally my days would be darker and darker, but mine gradually became a little bit and a little bit lighter. But it wasn't until maybe uh February I decided to or I felt that gave me a

• 32:39Speaker 04

  hope for the future because suddenly I sat there and I was like, I I do wanna stay in it. I want to be in a tent. I don't wanna be in a tent alone, but I wanna be in a tent with somebody that I appreciate and I wanna feel like I I I wanna wake up in the morning and and head somewhere in my head or in my in my dreams. I wanna wake up to something again and be a part of someone that's going somewhere. It doesn't it doesn't have to be here or there. It it it's just somewhere. Doesn't matter where. And that's when I asked my two of my best friends if they wanted to come with me in the spring to cross Greenland.

• 33:21Danielle LaRock?

  So Greenland was the first kind of big adventure that you had since being on K two. It it feels like, based on your words, that it was more of an emotional emotionally charged trip, but did you feel back at home? Did you feel the sense of you know, your passion and purpose coming alive again while you were out there?

• 33:46Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And it felt so good to be a part of the team with my two, two of my best friends to wake up because I got the place in the tent in the in the middle, so I had them next to me. And uh and to be there, and I knew that next day, I'm gonna go on a ten hour ski trip with two of my best friends. And uh in the evening, we're gonna put up this tent again. Uh where everything has its place, where we don't have more than just what we need. And that's a feeling of freedom. And and then we're gonna cook an evening meal together, and then we're gonna sit in our uh down sleeping bags and eat some candy.

• 34:32Speaker 04

  It's like I knew what was gonna happen. I knew uh we were gonna be out there. I knew that we had to work hard. And like I said, I didn't come home and I I didn't take care of my parents at all. They took care of me. They wrapped me in cotton and uh I couldn't even go to the store and buy milk. Cause I was scared that somebody was gonna look at me and see the new me. A thirty-three-year-old uh widow. And uh and if somebody came up to me, it was so difficult. So I I just left everything in the basket and went out

• 35:11Speaker 04

  from the store. Cause at that time, my my sorrow or my or my mourning was so public. But there in Greenland, standing in front of that heavy sled, there is nobody to wrap you in cotton. You just have to be strong and and and be the best teammate and root for each other and yeah. It was a, it's a good balance. When you have so much um, cause the mourning or and when you're in that state, it's like the body feels it it's like you have uh pain in the body. It's not only in the heart, it's it's the whole system. But there in front of that sled

• 35:54Speaker 04

  to pull hard, it it gave me a good balance. And also.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  A feeling of being on a way to some somewhere with these two people that I appreciate.

• 36:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  It sounds like Greenland was a huge part of healing and that you had this beautiful support system and friendships around you to do it with. Was there a reason that you decided on Greenland to be there with your friends?

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Greenland is 600 kilometers, more or less, 550, depends on which route. And so that's like more or less 20 to 25 days of skiing. And that's the kind of holiday they could have, my two friends. So and it's it's not super long, but it's long enough to kind of be there with your whole body. It's when you you're there long enough to forget there is there is a mobile phone. It's long enough to get into that rhythm of waking up with the sun, going to sleep when the sun goes down, to come in the the rhythm with the

• 37:09Speaker 04

  nature and your your mind. And yeah, it's like we're one cell up there, working together.

• 37:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  I mean, and it sounds like after, so you go to Greenland and after that, it seems like you start traveling again. And one of your travels that you decided on was Antarctica, which you traveled across completely unassisted with a friend. Can you tell us a little bit about why you decided to go to Antarctica and what that was like?

• 37:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, when we came back from Greenland, I asked Sydney Lynn if they want to go on a longer trip. Because I maybe it's an escape, geographically it is for sure, but but I wanted to get away from everything at home and everything that was difficult and just to be there in front of that heavy sled and work hard and have the wind constantly and the thoughts and the horizon and the endless white. So I just wanted to go further. And I felt that like I can remember the three last day days in Greenland. I was like, oh, I don't want to.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  Get there. Normally, you're happy like to be at the end of of to be on the line where the finish line of the expedition, but not that time. I just wanted to continue. So that's why I asked them, do you wanna go further? Do you wanna go to Antarctica with me? It's eighteen hundred kilometers, but it's really nice there.

• 38:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's really nice.

• 38:49Speaker 04

  It's really nice. And there is, it's like endless, it's the horizon, it's the blue sky that just dives in the horizon and the horizon you will never get to and you can just walk there forever. And it's like, it looks like a frozen ocean, but they didn't have three months of work and from their families, so they couldn't go. But one day, I'm, after the accident, I find a lot of comfort in talking to my friends that I met on these high mountains. And Ryan Waters was one of them and we talked, cause uh, talking with my friends

• 39:32Speaker 04

  with the same passion, I didn't have to explain anything. And that was the difficult thing for me after K two was that I came back alone without Rolf and I had to like take the responsibility for that choice to climb one of the most dangerous mountains alone without him. And with that out outcome, it was too, it was very difficult. And I understood everyone around me that had thoughts that, but you must have been uh, prepared, must have been prepared that something like that could happen. And prepared was something that we, we were, we were so prepared for all the

• 40:14Speaker 04

  every centimeter of that climb. But I don't know how you can prepare losing someone that you love. It's very difficult, I think, to prepare for something like that. So I wasn't prepared for that, but I can still, I can understand that people must have thought that. But being, talking to my friends, I'll uh. Around the world with the same passion, I didn't have to explain. And one day I talked to Ryan and he had been on Everest. And high on the mountain, he had frozen one of his toes. And he needed a, he wanted to have like a season off from Everest. Maybe at that time he'd been there like ten times guiding. So I asked him.

• 40:58Speaker 04

  But would you rather go to Antarctica? Would you, would you like to go on the most beautiful ski trip in the world? And there we can sit on the sled and you can eat everything you want as much as you like without getting fat.

• 41:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  Very tempting.

• 41:15Speaker 04

  Very tempting. And the sun will just circle around. Um, at the same spot on the sky every day. It's sunlight in the morning, it's sunlight in the evening. We can decide ourselves how much the clock is supposed to be, cause it doesn't matter. It's midnight sun. And he thought, he thought that sound um good. He liked that. Yes. He would, he would like to, to be a, a part of that team. So I knew he was strong. I knew that. Uh, he was a person that I could spend eighty, ninety days uh together with. A person that I could be just a little, it feels like you're just a little dot on a big map.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  Vulnerable together.

• 42:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:02Speaker 04

  Uh, on this big ocean. And he was a person that I could absolutely see myself. Uh, together with in that situation. I knew that he was, uh, he was like a mountain I could lean on. He was like a mountain range I could lean on. He was solid. It was just one thing. Uh, he hadn't skied that much before.

• 42:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  For the ski trip across Antarctica.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  But that's why I tell my, my kids every day. Yes, nobody knows how to do anything before they learned it. And to learn it, you have to try it. And then you have to practice and that practice and practice. And then you will learn it. That's how, yeah, you're not born knowing how to ski. You have to learn it.

• 42:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, so why not try and practice across all of Antarctica?

• 42:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, then you will have so much time practicing. You'll be really good at it.

• 43:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  And you do sound very convincing, so.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, yes. And a lot of, I grew up thinking or having people to wanted me maybe to think that to be a polar explorer, you have to have, you have to be at least two meter high. You have to have beard and to spit blood. But that's not, that's not how it is.

• 43:30Speaker 04

  It's if you like to ski, if you like to be out there, if you like to be a part of a team, if you like horizons, if you like snow and if you like to work hard, uh, to work something and if you like to snuggle up in a sleeping bag and eat candy all day around, then it's for you.

• 43:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  It certainly, you're selling me on it. Oh, and I, I love the sentiment of how you say like you're to be out in the outdoors or to go on expeditions. It's expected you're so tall or you're a man or, and to be this woman who is out here doing these incredible feats. It's really inspiring, especially to other women who love the outdoors and who want to be out there to see someone doing that is so exciting and it's so inspiring to.

• 44:27Speaker 04

  I hope so.

• 44:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  It is, it really, really is. And to hear your love and your passion, it just, I mean, it bleeds through every, all of your words. When you talk about the horizon and sleeping outdoors and doing all these things, your passion for it is contagious.

• 44:44Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 44:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, like I, you're talking about Antarctica and I'm like, do I want to ski across Antarctica?

• 44:52Speaker 04

  And if you think that, then you've started.

• 44:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, maybe, maybe that's what you're gonna do.

• 45:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  You said it took 90 days?

• 45:04Speaker 04

  No, we, um, I think we were out there for almost 80, yeah, 80 days, something. But I don't, I don't count days that, uh, in, uh, in Pakistan, when we're there for 96, we, we, we thought we'd counted right. So sometimes it's, it's, uh, we should, maybe we should count better. But, um, and I, and also a lot of people like, do you bring him skiing? He doesn't know how to ski, but I don't go out there to set, try to set a world record. It's not, it's not what I, and that's why I, I, I answered like, is it important? Or how is it, how does it feel to be the first?

• 45:49Speaker 04

  It doesn't matter. It's not what I do. It's, uh, that was just fortunate for me so that we could get sponsored on it. But it's not important when, uh, it's not, yeah, it's not what I do. I don't go out there to set world record. We can, we bring more food so we can stay out longer. Cause I don't go on expeditions to hurry home when it's on expedition I like to be.

• 46:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  Right. You're there because you love it.

• 46:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I don't have to rush to the other place. I, I would never go on a trip to try to be the fastest or, uh, yeah. I like to take as long time as possibly could.

• 46:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  It feels like that your passion just leads you from place to place to place. So where is your interests and passions leading you next?

• 46:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I I have two small kids and oh, small, they're not small anymore. They're eight and 10 and they love to go outdoors. We have the outdoors right outside the house. And now it's not about going, I don't like to leave them for many days. Maximum life, I can be away to go climb a mountain in Norway for three days, but then I have to go back to the, to my kids. I don't want to go on expeditions anymore. My, I'm, I'm very fortunate to have become a mother. And that's where I like to be. I like to be around them. So, but they love to be outdoors.

• 47:25Speaker 04

  Like this weekend, the oldest, she was like, Mom, shall we go out and sleep? And we can look at the stars, just take our sleeping bags out in the, in the forest. It's like 50 meters to walk and then we have a fireplace. And then we, we lay in our sleeping bags and we just fall asleep with the stars above us. And that, and that's enough. That's, that's where I want to be right now.

• 47:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  I love that. And I love that your kids are enjoying the outdoors and are inspired by your passions for being out there. And do you imagine that they will one day want to climb some of these taller peaks? Or have they spoken about it at all?

• 48:09Speaker 04

  I, I don't talk about these tall peaks in that way. In like, I don't sell that.

• 48:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 48:16Speaker 04

  I rather than not go to the higher, highest peaks. But of course, if I got to do whatever, I, I decided my path, my story. So I want them to decide there. But if they come one day and say, Mom, I want to climb an 8,000 meter peak, then I'll answer with, okay, then I'm coming with you.

• 48:37Danielle LaRock?

  Like, I'll be right there.

• 48:39Speaker 04

  I'll be there. And I was pregnant the last time I crossed Greenland. The oldest, she was in my tummy.

• 48:48Danielle LaRock?

  Wow.

• 48:48Speaker 04

  So she, she knows that she's crossed Greenland. She's probably the youngest.

• 48:55Danielle LaRock?

  I would say so.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  And, and she says, Mom, when I'm a little bit older, I want to do it. I want to be outside your tummy then. Let's, let's do it. So then I'd love to go again if she, if she wants. But when she's ready, if she wants, then I'll be there.

• 49:13Danielle LaRock?

  What a beautiful way to go back to Greenland.

• 49:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  So, but I, I won't push that. I won't say that to her and she's not going to do it for me. She wants, she needs to do it for her.

• 49:24Danielle LaRock?

  Of course.

• 49:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:26Danielle LaRock?

  Well, you have gone on to inspire both of us and a lot of others with your story, not only of resilience, but of pushing forward through difficult things and accomplishing things that may seem impossible. You know, I'm sure the, the initial conversation with your mother and saying all of these different goals that you wanted to accomplish. So for those listening with dreams of their own, whether they be summiting the highest peaks or whatever seems difficult for them, do you have any advice for accomplishing what the heart wants, even if it seems difficult on paper?

• 50:08Danielle LaRock?

  Or maybe their support system isn't super understanding of what they would like to do with their life?

• 50:15Speaker 04

  Well, I think the most difficult part is, because I meet so many, I mean, I meet people that say, but you've done that because that's easy for you because you have this and that. And those people will never go on an expedition. Because I, there is, I mean, there's two things. You can like say, I want to go on a trip because I want to do this and that. Or you can say, I want to go on a trip, but I can't do because. And that's the most, I mean, if you have. Decided if you have a dream and you like hold on to that dream with both your hands, then you're a long way. Yeah, don't let that dream go.

• 50:58Speaker 04

  If it's important to you, it's you know it if it's important, if it comes back to your head like over and over again, hold on to it. Cause uh, some of these dreams, I think it's uh, it's important to pursue. Cause um, we only live once and we are here now and you make your own story.

• 51:21Danielle LaRock?

  Thank you so much for sharing that and thank you for coming on and sharing parts of your story with us. We really appreciate it. You are an incredible person and thank you for being open to your story.

• 51:34Speaker 04

  Thank you so much.

• 51:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, thank you everyone so much for tuning in to this week's podcast. If you're interested in learning more about the K two accident that happened in two thousand and eight, you can check it out on Extreme Peak Danger, wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 51:49Danielle LaRock?

  And remember to enjoy the view, but watch your back. Bye everyone. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, live streams, Discord and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X at National Park After Dark.

• 52:37Speaker 05

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