MONTREAL — No Canadian woman had ever ascended the second\u002Dhighest peak in the world before her.
Earlier this month, Marie-Pier Desharnais successfully climbed K2 — renowned as one of the toughest mountains on earth — becoming the first woman in Canada, and the first-ever Quebecer, to summit the 8,611-metre monolith on the China-Pakistan border.
Desharnais’s expedition began on June 11, as she worked out administrative details in Pakistan and acclimated herself to the altitude. She completed five days of acclimatization on K2 with a Sherpa before returning to base camp, which sits 5,135 metres above sea level. Then a long wait set in, as she watched for better weather.Finally, a favorable weather window allowed around a hundred mountaineers to make the ascent on July 22, including Marie-Pier Desharnais with the Elite Exped team.
“First, Richard was missing and we were looking for him. We still had hope that he was alive. Then the news came that his body had been found,” she recalled.Beyond the technical skills required to climb K2, Desharnais reckons luck plays a role. “It’s Russian roulette,” she said. “I think that’s why it’s such a tragic mountain. You can manage the risks, do everything you can, have a great team, but there are still some elements that you cannot control.”
“I knew Nims, who is my mentor, before he was famous during his project. He had three mountains left,” she said. “We became friends and I started doing technical mountains with him, including Ama Dablam, in Nepal.” Desharnais, who survived a tsunami in Thailand in 2004, also found inspiration in disaster management. She stresses that the courses of one of her geography professors at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Sylvain Lefebvre, helped her find meaning and drive.Article content
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