Alison_Levine

my south pole trip, when i was the weakest member of my team and could not keep up with the 6'3" tall 230 lb guys (I am 5'4" and 108lbs. okay okay 112!!!). i trained my butt off, but those big guys could haul the heavy sleds faster than i could. but instead of making me feel like sh*t about it, they helped me out by taking some of the weight out of my sled and putting it in theirs (which meant they were now hauling MORE weight to help me out). It changed my leadership philosophy, because i used to just wish that weak people would quit so that my teams could go faster and be more efficient...but once I became the weak person, i realized that it is a leader's responsibility to help out those who are struggling. and after those guys helped me out, it made me very conscious of the fact that i should always be trying to help others (not just on expeditions, but in every day life). Holy crap this was a long answer...

hi. bear with me because i am not the best typist (two fingers here my friend!). i have climbed everest twice -- and both times i will say that i did not find the conditions to be as bad as they are often described. most climbers really try to observe the "leave no trace" policy, but of course not everyone does... sherpas have financial incentive to bring down trash, so that really helps. i only saw one corpse when i was there -- and i had to look away. it was someone who had been there for years and years. had it been more recent, i am sure it would haunt me forEVER.

yes. climbing k2. the death rate on that mountain is out of my comfort zone.

getting a republican elected in the state of California. :-)

very different experiences. north is brutal because you are skiing on floating ice rather than on a land mass, so there is DRIFT. And it can be very psychologically CRUSHING to ski for 15 hours, go to sleep, and then wake up and find you have drifted BACKWARD and are not further away than you were when you started the previous day. That is one reason the North Pole is so much harder. With south pole, at least you can track your progress and you know exactly how much further you have to ski to reach your destination.