Park City woman becomes first person to climb world’s second highest peak

After recovering from a car accident and telling her she had to kill him, Jenn Drummond began climbing. It started with Amma de Blom (elevation 22,349′) in Nepal.

“This started because I climbed a mountain called Amma de Blom (elevation 22,349′), which my son heard said, ‘I’m a dumb blonde,’ and he told me I should climb a real mountain like Mount Everest,” Drummond said. “And our family does hard things, so I said, I’ll show you what hard is. “I will do the Everest, because we all have the capacity to summit our Everest, no matter what.”

Drummond climbed the second highest mountain on each of the seven continents to meet Guinness World Records criteria, and then climbed two more mountains (nine in total) to make sure he held the record.

“When Guinness World Records wanted to do this tracking, they said, ‘You know, some people think Indonesia is part of Australia rather than Asia,'” he said. “’So, we really want you to climb the mountain in Indonesia called Sumantri (elevation 15,978′). And if Russia leaves Europe, the second highest point would be Mount Rosa in Switzerland (elevation 15,203′). So can you climb there too?’ So I did this in May of this year. Then Indonesia just opened and we completed Sumantri on October 9.”

Drummond began his record climbing adventure in December 2020 by climbing Ojos del Salado (elevation 22,615′) in Chile. Then on to Mount Kenya in Africa, Dykh-Tau in Russia (elevation 17,077′), Mount Tyree in Antarctica (elevation 15,919′), K2 in Asia (elevation 28,251′), Townsend He continued to climb Mt. (elevation 7,247). ) in Australia and Mount Logan (elevation 19,551′) in North America. This year, he broke the record by climbing Mount Rosa and Sumantri.

The climbs were all difficult, but difficult in different ways. Mount Logan in Canada stands out for the endurance required, Drummond said.

“Just because you weren’t allowed help and you had to carry all your stuff,” he said. “And it’s a very windy mountain, so you’d set up a camp, you’d have to build an igloo to keep your tent from tearing in the wind, bury your stuff so it wouldn’t blow away. And you had to do it five times. So every time you set up a new camp, you had to build a new igloo and secure all your belongings. “There was a lot of work.”

Although the last climb was not technically difficult, it was the longest climb due to logistics.

“This Indonesian climb was a one-day climb, but it was very difficult to get in because of the civil war,” Drummond said. “I flew there and was on hold for 16 days and woke up at 6 a.m. every morning and they were telling me, ‘No, we’re not flying today.’ ‘Be ready for tomorrow.’ And I’m in an unsafe part of the world so they move my hotels. They’re moving my hotel rooms. They don’t want me to set an example in the region. We finally got the green light to fly. We flew in. “We started climbing the mountain within 15 minutes.”

After weeks of waiting, the climb took just 10 hours and required three armed guards to keep him and his team safe.

When the mission was completed, Drummond said he was still feeling high from his accomplishment.

“When you’ve taken every possible version of something, when you know in your heart of hearts that you’ve taken it and done it and there are zero questions left, that honesty is a level of confidence and celebration that no one can take away. “You,” he said. “And that’s the best feeling in the world.”

As if that wasn’t enough, with four more Seven Summits Already completed, Drummond said he will finish climbing the world’s highest peaks. Three remain: Aconcagua in South America (elevation 22,838′), Mount Elbrus in Russia (elevation 18,510′), and Denali in North America (elevation 20,310′).