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Ranking in 7summits list, either CP or K | : | 39 |
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Ranking in Carstensz Pyramid list | : | 34 |
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Ranking in Kosciuszko list | : | 22 |
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First name | : | Ginette |
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Family name | : | Harrison |
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Gender | : | Female |
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Country of origin | : | UK |
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Date of Birth | : | 1958-02-28 |
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Name of first summit | : | Denali |
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Date of climbing the first summit | : | 1983-06-16 |
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Name of final summit in Carstensz list | : | Vinson |
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Date of final summit in Carstensz list | : | 1995-12-01 |
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Name of final summit in Kosciuszko list | : | Vinson |
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Date of final summit in Kosciuszko list | : | 1995-12-01 |
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Date of climbing Kilimanjaro | : | 1994-09-15 |
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Date of climbing Elbrus | : | 1994-08-24 |
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Date of climbing Aconcagua | : | 1990-01-27 |
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Date of climbing Denali | : | 1983-06-16 |
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Date of climbing Vinson | : | 1995-12-01 |
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Date of climbing Everest | : | 1993-10-07 |
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Date of climbing Carstensz Pyramid | : | 1994-11-20 |
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Date of climbing Kosciuszko | : | 1991-11-01 |
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Climbed Carstensz Pyramid? | : | Yes |
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Climbed Kosciuszko? | : | Yes |
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Total time including Carstensz Pyramid | : | 12y,168d |
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Total time including Kosciuszko | : | 12y,168d |
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Age when finished with CP | : | 37y,276d |
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Age when finished with K | : | 37y,276d |
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Website | : | http://www.shivacharity.org/ginette/ginettefund.html |
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Additional Info | : | Thanks to shivacharity.org for the following info:
GINETTE HARRISON (1958-1999)
Ginette Harrison was one of the world's most accomplished woman climbers. She was also a doctor who specialised in high altitude medicine. In 1998 she made the first female ascent of the world's third highest mountain, Kangchenjunga.
Ginette was born in 1958 on the 28th of February. She went to Katharine Lady Berkeleys School in Gloucestershire, and by the age of fifteen she was already a keen rock climber. At Bristol University, while studying medicine, she continued to climb. Her first big summit, at the age of 25, was Denali, the highest peak in North America. Then between 1986 and 1989, apart from climbing many of the lower peaks in Nepal, she climbed 7000 metres of Gankar Punsum, and led an otherwise all-male expedition to Masherbrum.
After qualifying as a doctor, and working in Bristol and Australia, she decided to join the Himalayan Kingdoms 1993 autumn expedition to Mount Everest. There she met her future husband Gary Pfisterer. Indeed, they reached the summit hand in hand. Her conquest of Everest made her the second British woman to have reached the summit. The first was Rebecca Stephens, who was there only months earlier in May.
From then Ginette was determined to complete all "Seven Summits". She did this the hard way. On Kilimanjaro she chose the difficult Heim Glacier route, with Mt Kenya's spectacular equatorial ice climb, the Diamond Couloir, thrown in for good measure. In the same way, after climbing Australasia's highest summit, the Carstenz Pyramid in Papua New Guinea, she went on to climb the neighbouring peak of Ngga Pullu. The last of her Seven Summits was Vinson, the highest point in Antarctica, in 1995. Later in 1995 was an impressive ascent of Mt Logan, in the Yukon. Ginette and Gary traversed this bulky mountain in a continuous "alpine style" push, carrying supplies for more than three weeks, delayed by extreme weather conditions, until eventually making the summit.
Ginette had outstanding stamina and mountaineering skill, which were confirmed by her ascent of Cho Oyu, followed almost immediately by that of Ama Dablam. This dual success gave her the confidence to tackle her hardest challenge so far - Kangchenjunga. The expedition was led by Gary, who chose the potentially dangerous Czech route, with its near vertical ice steps and winding terraces.
Any doubts about the risks were dispelled grimly when two climbers from another expedition collapsed and died just before the British-American team made their summit attempt. Finding one of the men sitting dead, still clipped into a rope, affected Ginette's husband, Gary, so deeply that he turned back. Ginette, however, was feeling confident, and she continued, reaching the summit on the afternoon of the 18th of May.
After being acknowledged as the first woman to conquer Kangchenjunga, Ginette Harrison left her home in Bristol to join her husband in America. Together they subsequently climbed the central Summit of Shishapangma, and then, in the spring of 1999, the very difficult Makalu, 12 miles east of Everest. By now Ginette had earned herself a place in the company of the greatest high altitude climbers ever. Indeed, because of her impressive record, experts now consider Ginette as being a close second behind Wanda Rutkiewicz, as the greatest woman climber of the century!
In the autumn, whilst attempting the seventh highest mountain, Dhauligiri, she was caught in an avalanche and sadly lost her life.....
Ginette's modesty and joyful enthusiasm, and her great achievements were a gift to all who knew her. Her friends have set up a Ginette Harrison Memorial Fund in order to honour her memory. This helps to promote education in Nepal through SHIVA charity. If you wish to conribute or to find out more, then please click on the links below.
http://www.shivacharity.org/ginette/ginettefund.html
From http://www.goodbyemag.com/sep99/mountains.html :
"Ginette Harrison was a member of international mountaineering’s elite. She too had early in life shown an affinity for heights. The British papers called her “Queen of the Peaks,” and she was as accomplished as any female mountaineer in history. She was among the first women ever to climb Everest and had climbed the highest peaks on each of the seven continents.
She was a physician who specialized in high-altitude medicine. She usually climbed with her husband Gary Pfisterer, who also was a physician.
Describing her ascent of Kangchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain, she wrote about encountering Japanese climbers who had been killed the day before:
I tried to convince myself that it was a climber from years ago, but as we climbed the gully to the right … it became apparent that it was one of the Japanese climbers when we stumbled across a second body sitting in the snow and still clipped into the rope, his hat pulled over his face. As we climbed higher we heard the sounds of a helicopter below us. My emotions and thought were whirling - how many more dead bodies would we find? Were there injured climbers higher up? What on earth had gone wrong? Was there anything we could do to help? But I knew that there was nothing that we could do. This was our summit day; the weather was perfect; we pressed on.
Having gotten near the top, she wrote, “I realized I’d made it - there were the summit prayer flags. But it took a full minute for my hypoxic brain to register that there were still footsteps upwards and it was another 20 feet or so to the summit.”
This was just six months before her death. She died on the way up Dhaulagiri, a Himalayan peak in Nepal that is the world’s seventh highest. An avalanche got her; her husband spent 48 frantic hours searching for her on the mountain before giving up." A foto gallery of Ginette can be found here:
http://www.angelcities.com/members/shivacharity/ginette.html
An article about her death:
http://classic.mountainzone.com/climbing/2000/news/harrison_10-27-99.html
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