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Title image: Book Reviews

Travel Reading Series

The Biography of an Everest Icon

By Sara Tiffany

When people think of Everest icons, climbers like Sir Edmund Hillary and Reinhold Messner come to mind, but behind the scenes there is another beloved icon working long, hard hours each climbing season. Her name is Elizabeth Hawley. While Ms. Hawley has never climbed Mount Everest, she could describe the mountain to you in such detail that you wouldn’t believe that she hasn’t even been to Base Camp. Since 1963 when she reported on the American Everest Expedition, she has been collecting and archiving information about Himalayan climbs making her the leading expert on the subject. This month our featured book is her biography called I’ll Call You in Kathmandu: The Elizabeth Hawley Story by Bernadette McDonald.

The biography begins as the author prepares for her first interview of Ms. Hawley. McDonald had been warned of Ms. Hawley’s tendency to be brusque and private, and she wondered how she would ever write a biography about someone who might not be interested in sharing the details of her life. Ms. Hawley surprised her by being friendly and open to conversation; by the end of their first meeting she said, “You can call me Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth Hawley at work at the Yak and Yeti

Elizabeth Hawley at work at the Yak and Yeti

Born in the USA in 1923 and educated at the University of Michigan, Hawley worked as a researcher for Fortune Magazine for a number of years. She quit her job to embark on a journey around the world and found herself in Kathmandu. The city reached out to her; she was enchanted by the country’s every changing political situation, and the quality of life it afforded her was also desirable (she would never need to cook again!). So Hawley decided that she needed to find a way to stay there. She began by finding a journalism job working for Time and later Reuters. Before long, Hawley was very busy with work as she was working as a journalist, but also operating a trekking company. Even in her 80s today, Hawley still oversees the operations of Sir Edmund Hillary’s Himalayan Trust and holds the title of New Zealand’s honorary consul in Nepal.

But Hawley is best known for her work documenting Himalayan mountaineering for the past five decades. Since the 1960s, Hawley has been recording details from every major expedition and climb, and not just of Everest, of all the major peaks in the Himalayas. Her files are the most complete and meticulous of any mountaineering archive. She always interviews climbers when they arrive in Kathmandu (countless mountaineers have said that they received her phone call minutes after arriving in their hotel room) and again after they return from their climb whether they were successful or not. Her files contain every detail from the expedition including each person’s account of the climb, photos, maps and climber profiles. If there is a dispute or controversy surrounding an expedition, everyone turns to Hawley for her highly regarded opinion on the matter. Outside Magazine’s Eric Hansen wrote, “Your summit never happened unless Elizabeth Hawley says it did” and others have called her “The Gatekeeper of the Himalayas.”

Wally Berg and Elizabeth discussing an expedition

Wally Berg and Elizabeth discussing an expedition

Elizabeth takes notes

Elizabeth takes notes

For more on the inspirational Elizabeth Hawley, pick up a copy of I’ll Call you In Kathmandu and read Outside Magazine’s 2011 article here.

You want to meet her? Join our Everest Expedition!