Mountain high

To say that 2002 Colorado Sportswoman of the Year Ellen Miller is just a mountaineer is so limiting. She’s in the record books as the first North American woman to summit Everest from the north and south. But she’s also an adventure racer, competing in events such as the Eco Challenge with some of the world’s best athletes. In Vail, she teaches Nordic skiing, trains young women for their first trail races, helps design adventure race courses, gives Everest slide shows to schools and works at a kayak camp for kids with cancer. “My father died a young age, and told me to go out and live my life,” says Miller. She’s taken the advice to heart.

Ellen Miller, who lives in Vail, Colorado, is a living inspiration for everyone who seeks a more interesting life. During the past five years, Miller has finished in the money in some of the world's toughest adventure races, set the previous women's world record for a high-altitude ski descent in the Himalaya (on Mustagh Ata), climbed in the Alps, the Himalaya, Alaska and South America, and reached the summit of Everest twice. Not bad for a former grocery story manager. Since then, Ellen has participated in two Eco-Challenge races, many high-altitude marathons, and spent almost as much time in the mountains as she has at home. But, from an impressive roster of accomplishments, her achievement on Everest stands out.

What Ellen says…

"I quit my job so I could start living and stop working," said Miller, who resigned her grocery store position in 1997. She had pursued mountaineering and adventure racing as a hobby for years before that milestone, but it was only after she focused primarily on those activities could she reach her goals.

"I wanted to start living more and working less, and I was able to leave full-time work because I know how to live simply," said Miller, who now gets by teaching at a local athletic club. "My lifestyle is manageable. And I knew I would have to leave my 'real' job if I wanted to excel in the areas that appealed to me."

“Thank you very kindly for the Natracare products. They arrived in superb condition, and presently they are packed and ready to go to Everest. With your permission, may I have a 'Natracare' patch to wear on my down climbing suit? Your product ties in nicely with women's climbing, and the Everest Women book project that I am working on. Thank you very much again for the products. I depart March 25 for Nepal. Thank you very much again for being a product sponsor. I am proud to use your products in my adventures”!

Ellen’s challenges

On May 16, Vail’s Ellen Miller stood on top of Mount Everest for the second time in two years, making her the first North American woman – and one of only four women in the world – to summit the world’s highest mountain from both the north and the south sides.

Despite the fact that the media was really focusing on the American women’s team of the International Mountain Guides climb of Everest, none of the five woman team reached the summit. But on a still morning full of shooting stars, Ellen Miller, accompanied by the renowned and fast-climbing Ang Dorjee Sherpa, succeeded in her own quiet bid for the top of the mountain that has killed more than 160 climbers and defeated dozens more.

“I had promised my brother and my mom that I would not make a summit attempt unless the conditions were ideal,” she says. “But I got out of the tent at 10:30 that night, and the sky was full of stars – up there, up that high, the stars are so magnificent – and it was very warm. I could take my hands out of my gloves and put my crampons on outside the tent. And I thought, I’m going for it.”

Ellen has achieved what no other woman in North America – and only four American men – have been able to accomplish. How?
“There’s a lot of luck involved,” she has said. “We were very, very fortunate.”
But what kind of luck makes for two perfect summits in two years.
“I owe it to great guidance,” she says, “Both years, I’ve climbed on a New Zealand permit. I had two different expedition leaders – Russell Brice and Guy Cotter. I love working with Kiwis.”

Ellen’s exuberance does not take into account the everyday hardships implicit in the scaling of a 29,035 peak – an environment where 180-knot winds destroy tents, and 17 below is called “warm.”

“I’m concerned all the time that I might do something stupid,” Ellen admits.
“Say I’m not clipped into the rope for a few minutes, or I catch my crampons on my down suit. There were still people on the mountain this year with black noses and fingers, severe cases of dehydration, hypothermia. One guy fell to his death from the Lohtse Face. At this point in time, out of any summiter I have ever met in person, I don’t know one who has ever said it was a walk in the park.”
“I got back to Camp 4 at about 1:30 in the afternoon after summiting, and at about 2:00 the wind started to pick up,” she says. “Clouds started to gather. The people who came into camp later that afternoon were coming down in whiteout conditions. The first thing I thought of was 1996 when all those people were killed. It made me think – oh, so this is how people get nailed. Because it can turn on you so fast.”

Ellen’s success is not an accident. Her attempts on Everest have been anything but impulsive, and a glance at her resume tells the story of a lifetime’s work. She summited Cho Oyu, Mustagh-Ata, Mt. McKinley, Mt. Whitney, Aconcagua, Mt. Elbrus and Kilimanjaro in addition to the volcanoes of Ecuador and all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peak succeeded s. A veteran of two Eco-Challenge adventure races, she is a seasoned endurance athlete who has competed in skiing, mountain biking, mountain running and snow shoeing competitions around the world.

Two days before leaving for Nepal in March 02, she was still keeping her second attempt on the summit under wraps in order to avoid the warnings and whispers of naysayers. What she does want to talk about is her next project, and the main reason behind her foray to the south side of Everest. Ellen has written a book that tells the tale of the elite women who have reached the roof of the world.

“There are some incredible stories. There are genuine world-class mountaineers. There are some women who never made it back down. There are love stories, comical stories, and mysteries. Whilst in Nepal I interviewed several of the world-class female mountaineers who make up the fabric of her book, including 63-year-old Tamae Watanabe of Japan, who in 2002 became the oldest woman on record to summit Everest, and Junko Tabei, who became the first female to reach the top of the world in 1975. Most of the other books about Everest are full of stories of tragedy, and stories about men. I want to tell the other side of the story”.