63 year old woman for her last of the 7 summits on Everest..

[7summits]

It seems that old age is the hot thing this season! One more person showing that sitting at home is not all that is left after retiring..

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 Attitude trumps altitude
Mountaineer, 63, sets lofty goal: Mount Everest, her seventh Summit
FLINT
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Thursday, April 05, 2007
By Elizabeth Shaw
eshaw @ flintjournal.com • 810.766.6311
Want to learn more?
www.nancynorris.net

FLINT - She nearly lost a thumb to frostbite on Denali, blew a knee on Mount Rainier and suffered severe facial edema from climbing at extreme high altitude.

But mountaineer Nancy Norris, 63, isn't about to give up her dream: to be the world's oldest woman to climb the Seven Summits.

"My whole goal is to show people life isn't over at 40 or 50 or 60," said Norris, a personal trainer and yoga instructor at the Hurley Health and Fitness Center. "If you take good care of yourself, exercise on a regular basis and eat a healthy diet, you can still set goals and do these things, regardless what your age is."

The Seven Summits are part of modern mountaineering mythology: the highest summit on each of the seven continents. Bagging all seven is considered by many to be one of the sport's great challenges.

Altitude is only one aspect of a mountain's challenge. The Seven Summits range in difficulty from Kilimanjaro - considered a walk-up - to the fierce climber-killing cold of Everest in the Himalayas, Vinson in Antarctica and Denali in Alaska.

Norris, the mother of four and grandmother of four, has been conquering them at a record pace since taking up the sport in 1998.

"It's the severe conditions, the cold and altitude, that I love. Once you're fit, it becomes absolutely nothing more than mind over matter," she said. "When it's 85 degrees below zero (with wind chill) in a five-day storm, it becomes a matter of survival. If you don't have the right mindset, you'll just cave."

After bagging 16,023-foot Carstensz Pyramid in New Guinea in September, Norris has six notches on her climbing belt - and an extra one to boot in Australia.

All that remains, at 29,035 feet, is the granddaddy of them all: Mount Everest.

Denali - also known as Mount McKinley - helped prepare her for the challenge, she said....
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