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Ranking in 7summits list, either CP or K | : | 43 |
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Ranking in Carstensz Pyramid list | : | 37 |
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Ranking in Kosciuszko list | : | 26 |
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First name | : | Sandy |
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Family name | : | Hill (Pittman) |
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Gender | : | female |
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Country of origin | : | USA |
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Date of Birth | : | 1955-04-12 |
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Name of first summit | : | Aconcagua |
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Date of climbing the first summit | : | 1992-02-16 |
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Name of final summit in Carstensz list | : | Everest |
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Date of final summit in Carstensz list | : | 1996-05-10 |
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Name of final summit in Kosciuszko list | : | Everest |
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Date of final summit in Kosciuszko list | : | 1996-05-10 |
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Date of climbing Kilimanjaro | : | 1993-09-22 |
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Date of climbing Elbrus | : | 1993-08-29 |
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Date of climbing Aconcagua | : | 1992-02-16 |
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Date of climbing Denali | : | 1992-06-22 |
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Date of climbing Vinson | : | 1993-01-13 |
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Date of climbing Everest | : | 1996-05-10 |
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Date of climbing Carstensz Pyramid | : | 1995-02-22 |
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Date of climbing Kosciuszko | : | 1994-02-02 |
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Climbed Carstensz Pyramid? | : | Yes |
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Climbed Kosciuszko? | : | Yes |
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Total time including Carstensz Pyramid | : | 04y,084d |
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Total time including Kosciuszko | : | 04y,084d |
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Age when finished with CP | : | 41y,029d |
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Age when finished with K | : | 41y,029d |
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Website | : | |
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Additional Info | : | As seen in an online quiz:
"Q: Who found climbing Everest “cheaper and more satisfying than a New York shrink”?"...
Sandy Hill Pittman is an adventurer and a mountaineer. She has made two attempts before reaching the summit of Mt. Everest before being one of the lead characters in the May 1996 tragedy, but has been turned back both times by impossible weather conditions.
In 1993, she reached 23,500 feet on the South Col route before high winds and deep snow forced her retreat one day away from the summit. In the Spring of 1994, she climbed on the mountain's eastern side, the Kangshung Face, a thrilling and dramatic route originating in Tibet which had never before been attempted by a woman.
A survivor of the worst disaster ever on Mount Everest, Pittman first made up her mind to climb the highest mountain in the world in 1963 at the age of nine after the first American team reached the summit.
"In the National Geographic photos, the gender of the climbers was concealed by their bulky, high-altitude gear and oxygen masks; never mind that they were all men. I saw people in those pictures standing on top of the world," she wrote in Vogue.
She started her working life as an editor at Mademoiselle. By 1992, Pittman recounts, "I was ready to embark on a project that has been accomplished by only a handful of people -- all of them men. I would climb the highest mountain on each continent, plus the highest peak located on an island."
Criticized for leaving her wealthy husband and child to risk the Everest climb, Pittman writes that many of her Manhattan friends considered her ambitions misguided.
"'Aren't you afraid that your husband will take up with someone else while you're away,'" she reports they asked her.
"'How can you be a good mother when you're gone for so long?'"
Pittman, who did eventually get divorced, believes that following her dreams had in fact strengthened her marriage:
"That it lasted for seventeen years is, I believe, due to the fact that I was able to live my dreams rather than stifle them as married people often do."
Surviving the Everest disaster in which eight people were killed, Pittman was pilloried in the press for "publicity seeking" (she had an NBC website on the mountain), for being "assertive," for "worrying over her image," for seeing everything as "centric to her."
(It has been argued many times that one of the (many) reasons for the 1996 disaster is that one of the Sherpa's shortroped Sandy isntead of fixing the fixed ropes as he was supposed to do. Th sherpa declared later that he did this for Scott Fisher as Sandy could get Fisher's Mountain Madness good publicity)
Her only public support came from celebrity columnist Liz Smith in the New York Post.
"And really, what has she done that's so bad?" Smith asked.
"She needed a little help to get up the mountain? She placed herself in a more heroic light than some felt was called for?" While recognizing that the risks she takes are "grave ones," Pittman wrote that "ultimately, despite the risks, I find myself more peaceful on a high mountain than anywhere else I can imagine.
"Simply stated, I live by the belief that sweat confirms life," Pittman added.
(thanks to http://www.echonyc.com/~onissues/w97hoffman.html )
(Sandy was married to Robert W. Pittman, known as ''Bob Pitchman,''forty-seven, ex CEO of MTV and current one of the hotshots at AOL. Now she uses her maiden name Hill only.) |
