Auditorium Theatre 2018-19 Issue 4 Point of No Return

2 | POINT OF NO RETURN | MAY 7, 2019 About Hilaree Nelson For Hilaree Nelson, skiing is the gateway to possibility. She started skiing at age 3 at Steven’s Pass in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state. She took a leap of faith shortly after graduating from Colorado College and moved to Chamonix, France, where she learned most of what she needed to know in order to take her skiing skills to the next level: ski mountaineering. From there, the place for Nelson was anywhere she could cut turns on mountain slopes: volcanoes in the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, in Mongolia, India, and Lebanon, and first descents of the tight couloirs of Ba‡n Island in the Canadian Arctic. Her mountain adventures led Outside Magazine to name Nelson one of the most adventurous women in the world of sports. She has repeatedly made a mark in the Himalayas. In 2005, she climbed the 8,000-meter peak Cho Oyu in Tibet, from which she made the 2 nd female oxygenless ski descent. In 2008, she attempted to climb and ski Gasherbrum II in Pakistan. Hilaree Nelson and team in Myanmar. In 2012, surrounded by team members she would mentor, and alpinists who would mentor her, she climbed both Everest and its neighbor Lhotse — making her the first woman to climb consecutive 8000-meter peaks in a single day. As the recipient of a National Geographic Explorer’s Grant, Nelson led a team of alpinists to attempt a first ascent of northern Myanmar’s Hkakabo Razi mountain in 2014. The film about the adventure, Down to Nothing , won the Best Cinematography Award at Telluride’s MountainFilm in 2015. And most recently, Nelson attempted another Himalayan giant, Makalu, which was named by Outside Magazine as one of the “Most Badass Adventures of 2015.” CORY RICHARDS ABOUT HILAREE NELSON