A teenager named Bianca has become the youngest Australian to reach the summit of Mount Everest, capping more than a year of intense preparation. Speaking after the climb, she said she had felt the strongest she has ever been by a long way, even though she has been climbing mountains for much of her life already.
The summit was not the first time she had been in peak condition for the mountain. She said she had also been very strong the previous year, but that it had come down to the weather. That experience left her nervous about heading up on a day when conditions might turn, knowing how much a successful climb depends on a clear window.
In the lead-up, she said her main worry was simply her training. She knew she was strong enough physically, and on the mountain itself she felt really strong and good. Even so, she admitted to having doubts in the hours before the final push, wondering what would happen if bad weather closed in on her near the top.
The training behind the climb was relentless. Bianca said she trained about 20 hours a week, six days a week, sustaining that load for roughly a year. She did all of it while also working through year 11 and year 12 at school, which she said made the physical demands of the preparation especially hard to keep up.
Much of the preparation was deliberately repetitive. She said it involved a lot of running, along with trips to the Dandenongs, where she did laps of a small mountain while carrying a 12-kilogram pack. The aim was to build the endurance and the strength that a climb on the scale of Everest would demand of her body.
Her advice for anyone hoping to follow was straightforward. To attempt Everest, she said, you first need to climb other mountains and learn the technical skills, and then become extremely fit and strong. Without that base of fitness, she suggested, the technical knowledge alone would not be enough to get someone safely up and back down.
On summit day, she set out at 2am to get ahead of the crowds and because bad weather was forecast for later in the morning. That timing meant she missed a sunrise at the very top, but she caught it on the way down, resting on the snow as she descended and taking a moment to look out at a view she described as beautiful.