No mountain high enough
Wendy Booker's mission is to climb the Seven Summits, in the process taking a stand against multiple sclerosis
The climb is slow and severe, a solitary creep up snowy crevasses and across 18-inch ridges that drop into oblivion.
There are altitude headaches. Burning eyes. She cries because it hurts, because the white slopes seem to stretch forever into the clouds. Sometimes it's hard to breathe. Other times, she just wants her mother.
Separated from other hikers by 20-foot lengths of rope, Wendy Booker endures by recalling trips to Moscow with her sons or chewing gummy bears. Numbers and calculations run like code through her head. Upbeat songs serve as a soundtrack on an iPod.
"It's like doing a marathon every day," explained Booker, a Manchester native with multiple sclerosis who has climbed the four highest peaks on four continents. "You have to go someplace where you can say, 'I can put up with this.' Anything to keep you going."
They are hulking, relentless beasts, gruff and temperamental; deadly for some. Known as the Seven Summits, they represent the loftiest pinnacles on each continent. A small number of people -- barely more than 100 -- have reached the top of every one.
Booker wants to be the first woman with MS to scale them all.
It's the 52-year-old's quest to beat back her illness, to defy it.
"Don't let the disease define you," she said, wiping at wet eyes as she sat in her Manchester apartment, on the second floor of a red, cedar-shingle house with a rusty cricket weathervane. Nearby, sliding glass doors offered a view of the inner harbor and two white-steepled churches. "That's become my entire mission. I want to be the face of MS."
The former interior designer and single mother of three sons was diagnosed nine years ago; the disease has left her numb on her left side, from the tips of her toes to her rib cage. She walks with the slightest limp, and also experiences dizziness, vision, and balance disturbances.
Considering those restrictions, she uses the mountains as a metaphor for the illness and the human will -- but also to offer a more realistic perception of MS.
Most often, the autoimmune disease -- which affects the central nervous system of roughly 400,000 people nationwide -- is associated with spasms, paralysis, and blindness, she said. Hardly ever do people envision a trim, blond, 50ish woman traversing steep ice faces or sleeping in a tent on a mountainside .
She's a radical example, of course. She'll even use words like "crazy" to describe the challenge she's taken on.
Like many athletes, though, she's compelled by an impalpable force, addicted to the strategy, unpredictability, and perseverance that come with mountain climbing.
It became an all-consuming quest in 2002, after weather steered her off a recreational climb on Alaska's Mount McKinley. She quit her job to train full time, and sought sponsorship for the mountains from
She now has just three more summits to go, having just this month conquered South America's Aconcagua. Antarctica's Vinson is slated for December. Kosciuszko, in Australia, is slated for 2008. Everest, the big one, is the challenge for 2009.
When she's not struggling up icy peaks, Booker is a motivational speaker. Last year, she did nearly 70 talks across the country.
Her message: Climb your own mountains.
"Just because you don't get to the top, doesn't mean you're not good enough," she said in an interview pre-Aconcagua, bustling between suitcase-stuffing, cellphone calls, and the delivery of a satellite phone for mountain-top communication. "It'll still be there tomorrow."
Students in Jim Cleere's class at Donald McKay Elementary School have built a whole curriculum around her dramatic quest.
As part of their studies, they analyze the geography, ecosystems, and layers of the seven mountains, as well as the cultures surrounding them. They also research MS and climbing, and write articles about her trek.
Booker is pleased to contribute; she's visited the class three times, sharing stories, photos, and her equipment. She has also, to the students' delight, called from 16,000 feet via satellite phone.
The 9- and 10-year-olds are completely captivated by the relentless mountain climber, Cleere said, bringing her up even if she's not part of the day's studies, and clinging to her during visits.
"I knew [her story] would hook the kids," said Cleere. "It gets them engaged and inspired. It makes it so much more real to them."
Even so, Booker doesn't like to think of herself as extraordinary.
She hikes with good climbers, she said, and examines routes and conditions. "I take a calculated risk."
She was diagnosed in 1998, after experiencing numbness in her left leg. Initially, she had what she called a "pity party," and feared she'd lose all sensation in her legs.
But then she did something extraordinary: Knowing exercise was crucial to battling MS, she ran the Boston Marathon.
After that, she just wanted to go bigger and higher.
"I really made mountain climbing my prime objective," she said.
But to bump into her on the street, you'd never imagine she's dug her ice ax into 20,000-foot peaks. She's trim but not immaculately chiseled, toned but not a vein-bulging, zero-body-fat specimen.
Mountain climbers are very rarely distinguishable in build, noted Booker's trainer, Catherine Sullivan of Beverly. Their goals are endurance and stamina, not girth or sheer strength. She guides Booker in "functional" exercises with weights and cardio three times a week. In preparation for a climb, Booker will strap on a pack filled with 45 pounds of sunflower seeds and set the treadmill to its highest altitude.
She runs six times a week, too, and does marathons between climbs. She's completed nine, five of them in Boston.
"To get Wendy to rest a day is my biggest challenge in dealing with her," said Sullivan, who described Booker as atypical, independent, and very strong. "She's driven. I've never seen a mindset like hers. It's relentless."
But that, ultimately, is what gets her up mountains, Sullivan said.
It's about fighting back fear, too, Booker explained. People die all the time on these peaks -- Everest alone claimed about 15 last year -- but she doesn't let that overwhelm her.
"People say, 'Aren't you scared?' I just can't live that way, always worried about the future. Do I get afraid sometimes? Oh, you bet."
Especially when it comes to Everest. To prepare, she'll climb Cho Oyu in the Himalayas, a common training ground for those with eyes on the big daddy of all mountains, because it's similar in altitude and terrain. She also plans to move to Boulder, Colo., to acclimate to a higher altitude.
"I have a lot of respect for the mountain, and when I do it, I'm going to be ready for it, mentally and physically," she said. "I have to wrap my head around it."
And after Everest?
"I get post event letdown," she said with a laugh. "I don't know -- the space shuttle?"
