Azar takes women on adventure
MOUNTAINEER Alyssa Azar continues to inspire women around the world.
Last week Ms Azar led a group of women around the 10 highest peaks in Australia.
The participants ranged from 28 to 66 years old and included Indian mountaineer Radhika GR, who summited Mount Everest just one day before Alyssa summited it in May last year.
“It was great to be able to show a fellow Everest summiteer around our backyard in Australia,” she said.
“It’s the first time I have had someone with Radhika’s climbing credentials come to Australia to undertake an adventure with me.”
Toowoomba woman Rhonda Webber also undertook the adventure having previously tackled the Kokoda Track in 2016.
“I was well and truly exhausted, both physically and mentally, and felt I had nothing left in the tank to get me home,” she said.
“But in the end I had to dig deep to keep going, one step in front of the other.
“I was the one who sought this challenge and I needed to know that I could do this.”
Ms Azar is also planning to release a children’s book called Girls Can Do Scary Things Too with the aim of inspiring young girls.
This is part of a larger-scale project that Ms Azar is working on to ensure that she uses her life experiences to help young girls lift the glass ceiling they perceive to be beneath.
“I want them to have the belief in themselves like I had when I was younger,” she said.
“That belief is what pushed me through the training, the mental preparation, the setbacks of the first two attempts on Everest and eventually saw me standing on top of the world.”
Ms Azar will head Russia in June for her next personal endeavour which is to climb Mount Elbrus, another of the Seven Summit climbs.