Korean Is First Woman To Climb All 14 Of World’s Highest Mountains

We’ll begin the day with something a little different — the story of a “first.” Oh Eun-sun, 44, today became the first woman to successfully climb all 14 of the world’s highest mountains. The Associated Press adds that Oh “crawled on all

South Koreans watch live television in Seoul as Oh Eun-Sun reaches top of Annapurna, on April 27, 2010 . (Photo by Kim Jae-Hwan/AFP/Getty Images)

fours for the final, steep stretch to the peak of (Nepal’s) Annapurna, her feat broadcast live in (her native) South Korea by KBS television.”

South Korea’s Yonhap News says Oh “achieved the feat 13 years after she first climbed the 8,035-meter Gasherbrum II, one of the 14 ‘eight-thousanders,’ in July 1997.” (Oh’s Korean-language website is here.)

Oh had been competing with Spain’s Edume Pasaban for the distinction of being the first woman to scale all 14 “eight-thousanders” (peaks of 8,000-meters or more; that’s 26,247 feet). Pasaban has one mountain remaining in her quest — Mount Shisha Pangma in the Tibetan region of China.(IM)