Lisa Thompson has climbed 14 mountains in the last 14 years. She has reached the seven highest summits on each continent, scaled many mountains in the Himalayas, and in 2018 she became the second American woman to climb the treacherous K2 in Pakistan.
Lisa Thompson has climbed 14 mountains in the last 14 years. She has reached the seven highest summits on each continent, scaled many mountains in the Himalayas, and in 2018 she became the second American woman to climb the treacherous K2 in Pakistan.
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Lisa Thompson:
The first part of my climbing career was really about proving what I was capable of. And it wasn't until much, much later and a lot of life changes that I think had enough wisdom to start to pay attention to what the mountains were teaching me, and now my climbing is much more about that.
Shelby Stanger:
In the last 14 years, Lisa Thompson has climbed 14 mountains. Some of them have been closer to her home in Seattle, Washington, like Mount Rainier and Mount Baker, others stand scattered around the globe. Lisa has reached the seven highest summits on each continent, scaled many mountains in the Himalayas, and in 2018 she became the second American woman to climb the treacherous K2 in Pakistan. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studio's production.
Lisa Thompson has completed some of the tallest, toughest climbs in the world, and every aspect of her life has been influenced by the mountains. In the midst of her incredible mountaineering career, Lisa also survived breast cancer. The experienced dramatically shifted her motivation for climbing. Years later, she founded an athletic coaching company, and recently Lisa published her first book titled Finding Elevation. Her journey as a mountaineer wasn't a straightforward one, though. In fact, 15 years ago, climbing wasn't even on her radar. Lisa Thompson, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Lisa Thompson:
Thank you for having me.
Shelby Stanger:
We're excited to have you on. I love talking to badass women. It takes a certain person to become a mountaineer, and it's not something that I desire to do, but I love talking to female mountaineers. I don't know why, I find them very badass. I want to start with why mountains? Why mountains? Why mountaineering? Why did you choose that?
Lisa Thompson:
I think you're right when you say it takes a certain kind of person to be a mountaineer, and I think that's especially true for women because it's not expected. Though there are more women in the mountains than there used to be, we're still a minority. And for me, I grew up with this need to prove myself. And when I had got my first corporate job, I studied engineering and I was the only female at my level. And I had recently moved to Seattle, which is where I live today, and climbing here is very much a part of the culture. It's a frequent weekend activity. It's just a part of I think how people recreate in the Seattle area. And so my peers at this new job, all men, would go climbing on the weekends, and I had no interest in climbing mountains. I grew up in Illinois. There were zero mountains.
At that point in my life, I'm embarrassed to say I probably didn't even know where Mount Everest was. It was not just anything that interested me. But what I desperately wanted as the only female in my level at this new job was to feel like I belonged. I wanted to be a part of this group. And I would see these guys, not bad men at all, but they would come back to the office on Monday and they'd have these heroic stories about forting icy rivers and navigating through crevasses, and I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted them to see me as capable, and I thought this was a way for me to do it. But instead of doing the logical thing, which would be like, "Hey, climbing. That sounds like fun. Can I join you?" And I'm sure they would've said yes, I got off about it and I just decided I would go climb my own mountains. Again, no idea what that meant, what it would entail or where it would ultimately lead me.
Shelby Stanger:
The first time you climbed a mountain, what did it feel like? Take us there. I can't grasp what it feels like to climb a mountain.
Lisa Thompson:
So the first big mountain I climbed was Mount Rainier, which is the highest point in Washington. So it's 14,410 feet. I was still clueless about what I was doing, so I signed up with a local guide company. I made all the worst mistakes, like bought the heaviest backpack, I wore the wrong boots, lost about eight toenails, just all the things that you I guess have to go through in order to learn. And I didn't summit. The whole team turned around at about 12,000 feet due to weather.
But first I remember it being excruciatingly hard, and then I remember finding someplace in my soul or my mind or somewhere that told me that I could keep going, that I had whatever it took to keep pushing forward. And I remember descending, I remember being relieved for not having to attempt the summit that year, but I also knew I would come back. There's just something got into my psyche that made me want more of it, and I went back the next year and summited. And there was a point on that climb that second year where the guide looked at me and just said, "You're going to the top," and that was one of I think the first times I really felt recognized and capable.
Shelby Stanger:
Summiting Mount Rainier in 2009 put Lisa's life in motion, and her new love of mountaineering was in the driver's seat. With that first mountain under her belt, Lisa realized that she could push her climbing even further. She had read about the Seven Summits and she started planning expeditions. Within a year Lisa was traveling the world, crossing peaks offer list. What order did you do the Seven Summits in, and what was the timeframe?
Lisa Thompson:
So I started, let's see if we can get through this, I climbed Rainier. I summited Rainier in 2009. And then I knew, like I said, there was just something that got into me that I wanted to do more of this, and I didn't know what to climb. And so I had read a book about climbing the seven summits and I was like, "Well, I'll just climb one of those." So I picked the highest point in Europe which is called Mount Elbrus, it's in Russia, and I climbed that next and felt great. It went well, it was my first taste of being on an expedition. And then after that, I climbed Aconcagua, which is the highest point in South America. So now this is seriously high altitude. Aconcagua is almost 23,000 feet.
And for true expedition living, you're there for multiple weeks at base camp. You do rotations, which are what forced your body to start to acclimate and build more red blood cells, and it was hard. It was not my favorite kind of climbing. Aconcagua was just a lot of rock and stone, and I prefer snow and glacier. And I learned a lot about what I'm capable of and the importance of being a positive member to a team, and being able to have a little bit in reserve in case your teammates need you. And then after that I climbed Denali, and that I love. Denali is still a very pure climb for a lot of reasons because there aren't any porters, there's no Sherpa helping carry your loads. I at the time weighed 115 pounds, maybe 110 pounds, and had to carry 80 pounds between a sled and a backpack, and I wanted again to see if I was capable of doing that.
And after that, I went to Mount Vinson, which is in Antarctica, and that is just such a pristine, beautiful place. It's hard to describe because we live in such a populated, developed world, and everywhere we look, what we see has been touched by man in some way. And so to be on this whole continent that was practically pristine and pure of that was just incredible. And then after that, I wanted to go to the Himalaya. I didn't yet want to Climb Everest. I felt like it was sort of too commercial, got too much hype, but I wanted to climb in that mountain range because it's so iconic. And so I chose a mountain called Manaslu, which is an 8,000 meter peak. It's just over the 8,000 meter threshold, so 8,100 meters.
And at the beginning of 2015, set my sights on that mountain, and that's when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And so that of course, as it should, changed everything for me. And that stubbornness that got me into climbing to begin with kicked into overload at that point, and I was so determined not to let cancer dictate my priorities. And was fortunate that my cancer was caught very quickly, and I had just an incredible medical team here in Seattle, and I was still able to climb that mountain in the fall of 2015. Didn't summit due to avalanche concerns, but I learned so much on that climb about what's important. Having just had cancer, it just was very obvious to me how fragile life is, and that it's up to each of us to determine the lives that we will lead.
Shelby Stanger:
Can you tell me about getting the diagnosis?
Lisa Thompson:
Yeah. I remember that day I was frustrated that I even had to have an exam in the morning. So I just went in for a routine mammogram and I had a stack of work at the office waiting for me, and it was just a nuisance that I had this doctor's appointment. And early in my career, I had actually worked in medical imaging and so I know the flow for diagnostic tests, and I knew that when the radiologist came into the room after my test that it was bad news. I knew that wasn't normal protocol. It was a cold February day. I remember her sitting next to me very closely and describing what she had seen in the mammogram, and that there were these concerning calcifications in my left breast. And I knew immediately that I had cancer. I still had to have a biopsy in loads of other tests, but there was just something that clicked for me in that moment and I knew that I had cancer.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you know there was something wrong before?
Lisa Thompson:
Nothing, zero.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow.
Lisa Thompson:
And it just really solidified for me that life is just fragile and you really never know what's going to happen, and that it's important to just live your best life every day.
Shelby Stanger:
But you've had a clean bill of health since.
Lisa Thompson:
Since then. So I had a bilateral mastectomy that year, and then I went to Manaslu to climb, and then when I came home in the fall of 2015 I reprioritized my life. So at that point I quit my corporate job, I got a divorce. I sold nearly everything that I owned and I decided to climb Mount Everest.
Shelby Stanger:
You're not afraid to cut the safety cord. That's really, really brave. A lot of people are scared just to quit their job, they're scared to leave marriages that aren't healthy. Most people are scared to climb Mount Everest, Manaslu, any of those, and there's something in you that just leans towards fear and getting over it and using courage to do so. Where does that come from?
Lisa Thompson:
I think it's the fear of looking back on my life and being like, "Why didn't I do that thing? Why did I let someone else's definition of what I'm capable of or fear prevent me from doing something that felt right to me?"
Shelby Stanger:
Lisa did her best to not let fear or her diagnosis stand in the way of completing the Seven Summits or climbing any mountain she set her sights on. Climbing Manaslu in Nepal in 2015 rebuilt Lisa's confidence after her cancer treatment, and in 2016, she successfully summited Mount Everest. But before she headed to Australia to complete the Seven Summits by climbing Mount Kosciuszko, Lisa decided to pursue another monumental challenge. She set her sights on summiting K2 in 2018.
K2 is the second highest mountain on earth. It's a more difficult and more dangerous climb than Everest for a handful of reasons. First, the weather is even more extreme and unpredictable. Second, the approach is more technical. It's a rough trek over glacial ice, snow, and rock. Lastly, it's in a more remote area in a less touristy country. Unlike Everest, there's no emergency care nearby. For all of these reasons, fewer than 400 people have summited K2 compared with the 6,000 that have summited Mount Everest. Climbing mountains for you teaches you how to go-
Lisa Thompson:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
... to your limits.
Lisa Thompson:
Yes, and find those limits. And that was a very important thing I had to learn. I remember at one point someone looked at me very seriously, it was a former boss, and was like, "How do you know what your limit is?" And I was like, "I don't know. I need to figure this out." And so that was a lot of what K2 was about, figuring out what that limit is, and being able to being wise enough to get close to it but not cross that red line that's going to put me or my team in danger.
Shelby Stanger:
And you're the second woman to ever climb to the top-
Lisa Thompson:
The second American woman to summit K2.
Shelby Stanger:
That's incredible.
Lisa Thompson:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have any funny moments that have happened?
Lisa Thompson:
There have been funny moments. I remember when I was climbing K2, so with another woman, we decided to begin our summit attempt a little bit early so we left base camp ahead of the rest of the team, mostly because we were the only women on the team, we wanted to just be together and not have the pressure of these guys. And I want to reiterate, I've learned a lot from men in the mountains so not to diminish that at all, but we just wanted to climb on our own at our own pace-
Shelby Stanger:
No one's man-hating here, it's just you are one of the only women, I'm sure it was fun to climb with another woman.
Lisa Thompson:
Totally. That's it. And we get to advanced base camp and we have no utensils for eating. We had forgotten to pack anything. So we literally scrounge around. First, we had this moment where we're like, "We don't need to wear bras anymore," and we just took those off, and then we had to scrounge around in the rocks and we found these ridiculous, bent, probably 30 year old tent steaks that we had to then for the rest of the time eat our rice and pasta and oatmeal with, and it was a hilarious moment at 22,000 feet.
Shelby Stanger:
I love that. Was there any moments on any of the mountains you've climbed where everything went wrong?
Lisa Thompson:
Yeah. Actually, the next day on K2 there was a death above me. And I don't have to get too macabre about it, but seeing that happen, it just made me question why I was there and why am I doing this? And knowing that person, having met him, he wasn't close to me, but realizing that we all came here with the same hopes and expectations, and that the mountain doesn't care. Especially that mountain doesn't care at all, and that that could be taken away from you and your family in a second, not because you made a mistake. He didn't make a mistake. And it just made me like question why am I here? Why am I doing this?
Shelby Stanger:
So what was your why? Why do you keep doing it?
Lisa Thompson:
Yeah. So I laid in the tent for a long time that next day and just cried and thought about that question. And I just knew that I was capable of more, and that demonstrating that would ripple out to other people. And it was that sort of broader, similar to just climbing in Nepal, knowing that that was going to have an impact more broadly pushed me to keep going. And I think also, climbing any mountain, you have to accept that it's dangerous. And before I went to Pakistan in particular, I had to come to terms with the fact that death is a possible outcome of climbing this mountain, and you have to accept that.
Shelby Stanger:
Since climbing K2, Lisa decided she has no desire to climb something that dangerous ever again. In fact, she didn't climb anything over 20,000 feet for three years. After her K2 summit, her final climb of the Seven Summits took place in Australia on Mount Kosciuszko, a mountain that's just over 7,000 feet. While this final mountain may not have been as challenging as the others, Lisa experienced a feeling of true accomplishment at the summit. When we come back, Lisa talks about the lessons she's learned from the mountains, her coaching business, Alpine Athletics, and her recent all-woman's trip up Cholatse in Nepal.
Climbing big mountains is an incredibly risky activity. No one can control the weather patterns or the avalanche risk, and moving in such harsh conditions can be hard on the body. The only thing climbers can control is their own preparedness. Throughout her climbing career, Lisa Thompson has worked extensively with coaches to prepare for her expeditions. In 2018 after summiting K2, Lisa founded her own coaching company, Alpine Athletics. Tell me a little bit about your coaching business and why you started it and what you guys do.
Lisa Thompson:
So my company is called Alpine Athletics, and I started it. I actually wrote all of the details for the website at K2 base camp in 2018. That was what I did on my downtime at base camp. And at that point in my climbing career, I'd realized that I was usually more prepared for a climb than other people, and that grew out of me often being the only woman or often being doubted and wanting to be as prepared as I could possibly be in every way for every mountain that I climbed.
Shelby Stanger:
Or maybe just being an engineer.
Lisa Thompson:
Or that too, being a nerd. Yeah. So I had coached a few friends who climbed Rainier and thought, "I think I could do this. I think I want this to be my side hustle." At the time, I still had a corporate job. And what I learned was it is gratifying on another level. For someone to come to me and say, "I want to climb Mount Rainier," and to take them from having maybe hiked a little, never worn a crampon to standing on the top of that mountain is hugely rewarding to me. And also, now this is my full-time job I get to talk and think and research mountains all day long, which is a dream for me.
Shelby Stanger:
That's awesome. Have you learned anything that you didn't expect being a coach?
Lisa Thompson:
Yes. Yeah. So a little side note. I had coached for a long time with some of the best mountain coaches there are still, and I really respect these men. And the coach I was working with it in preparation for K2 stopped working with me. He ended our professional relationship because he didn't believe that I was ready to climb K2, and that was a very debilitating time in my life. And things happen for reasons, I firmly, firmly that, and that really helped to temper how I coach, and to talk to the athletes that I'm fortunate to work with about why a particular mountain is important to them. And I do think I have a responsibility to say, "I think you're reaching a little bit too far," but I think it's important to follow that statement up with, "And here are the things that I can help you do to get there."
And seeing, especially I've coached one woman now, she'd never climbed anything and now I'm coaching her to climb K2. And so to see her progression and her learning the skills and being more confident and knowing that I was a part of that is just hugely rewarding. One of the benefits I have is I've climbed almost all the mountains that they're aspiring to climb, and so I truly understand what it's like to be on that mountain and what that mountain requires of any athlete who attempts to climb it. And then I get to know the athlete themselves, what their training environment is, why they want to climb the mountain, what their mental strength is like, and I think of myself as just building the bridge. I just create the path for them to get where they are to where they need to be to summit that mountain.
Shelby Stanger:
In addition to working on projects that help other women achieve their dreams, Lisa continues to go after her own wild ideas. In fact, days before our interview, she returned from leading an all-women's expedition up Cholatse, a 21,000 foot mountain in Nepal. The expedition included two American climbers, two Nepali climbers, and a support crew of 12 Nepali women. Scheduling this interview was a little tough because you were climbing in Nepal. Tell us about this trip.
Lisa Thompson:
Yeah. The whole point of this climb was that me and another female climbing friend said, "Let's create an all-women's expedition," so all women porters, all women base camp crew, only women climbing. And I was worried. I wasn't sure it was all going to come together. It was the first time I had played a role in pulling an expedition together and organizing it and leading it.
Shelby Stanger:
Wait, and only women porters? Are there a lot of women porters in Nepal?
Lisa Thompson:
So, no. And the story we could have a whole ' nother podcast about. So I reached out, there are also only two female Sherpa that are experienced enough to guide in the Himalaya. And I had interacted with one of them, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, and I just sent her an Instagram message and was like, "Planning an all-women's expedition at Cholatse. Do you want to be our lead Sherpa?" And she was like, "Yep." I was like, "Oh my God." And she was so passionate about helping other women in Nepal for that reason, that there are not a lot of women who work in the mountains. And as I learned their stories of losing children and losing husbands on Mount Everest and of never walking more than two days from their village before, and being worried that they wouldn't be accepted in our expedition, it was literally and probably forever will be the most meaningful climb that I've ever been on.
There was a point, well, many points, as we were walking to base camp, which was a seven-day walk through the Khumbu Valley, we would pass other trekkers who would say, "Oh my God, there's a super fun group of all female porters up ahead of us. They're singing and laughing," and we're like, "That's our team." And so one of the, for me, unexpected takeaways is we as a team started to share and laugh and cry and just really form this sisterhood. We all shared that at some point we were worried that we weren't capable. That they couldn't carry the loads, that I was worried the expedition wasn't going to come together. And it was through us just being so devoted to supporting women that it all did, and I'm happy to say there were no tense moments. It was supportive and fun. And we also raised money for young girls education in Nepal, so seeing the effect that that had and will have on women in that valley is immeasurable.
Shelby Stanger:
So you've done a ton of climbing expeditions with probably a bunch of dudes. What was it like climbing with all women?
Lisa Thompson:
It was so freeing, and I realized that some of that not feeling free is on me from other expeditions. Totally, totally recognized that I put my guard up very easily. But we all commented on how we didn't feel the need to strive. We're just going to go out today, this is what the plan is. We're going to love and support each other, and we're all committed to doing our best.
Shelby Stanger:
Mountain climbing has attracted a lot of people and it's only growing, and I have mixed feelings about it.
Lisa Thompson:
Me too.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. Because it's expensive and it's not accessible to everybody, and people die and it just feels like this big ego thing, but at the same time, it's beautiful. That's what we remain to do as humans, climb the tallest mountains, test our limits.
Lisa Thompson:
Achieve the most. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you grapple? If you have these mixed feelings too, how do you deal with them?
Lisa Thompson:
Yeah. I see the same thing happening in climbing big mountains, and I was talking to someone recently in Nepal about this. It used to be we'd go to Nepal and we'd climb a mountain, and now people want to climb 10 of them, or all 14 of the 8,000 meter peaks in the world. And for me, that's not my style of climbing. It's great. It's a huge, huge athletic achievement. I cannot imagine climbing 14 8,000 meter peaks in a lifetime, let alone less than a year. And I think if people want to do that and they want to do it safely and honestly, great. But climbing to me is so much more about having a relationship with the mountain and the people around me and using that climb to learn more about myself, and so for me, I'm fine with just one mountain at a time.
Shelby Stanger:
Well, it's really cool. And you're in this percent that's very small of people who've done what you've done, and I'm sure you've inspired people that you don't even know about, and will, to do different things. Could you distill down the biggest lessons the mountains have taught you?
Lisa Thompson:
Yeah. For me, the biggest thing is to not let other people define what I'm capable of. I think I got very caught up in that early on when people doubted what I should or shouldn't be doing as a new climber or as a woman, and I let that get to me for a while. And it wasn't until after cancer and I realized that this is my life. I get to make the choices and I'm going to decide what I'm capable of, and it might not always be pretty. I'm probably going to screw it up, but I'm not going to look back and regret anything.
Shelby Stanger:
Over the years, Lisa's adventures have taught her to lean into a more wild life and to live without regrets. Although her climbing journey has changed a lot since she summited her first mountain over a decade ago, one thing has remained the same. Lisa craves adventure. She's still climbing mountains, but instead of pushing herself to reach the world's most notable peaks, Lisa is more focused on helping others experience the magic of alpine air.
Lisa Thompson, thank you so much for coming on Wild Ideas Worth Living. I loved connecting with you, and your story is just incredible. Lisa's written about her mountaineering adventures and her journey with cancer in her book Finding Elevation. It just came out on January 10th. I read it and I highly recommend that you read it too, especially if you're into mountaineering and into pushing your limits. If you want to learn more about Lisa, you can go to her website, lisaclimbs.com. You can also follow her on Instagram @lisaclimbs. That's LI-S-A-C-L-I-M-B-S.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative, and our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we appreciate when you follow this show, rate it and review it wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.