As part of the Dolores Public Library’s Winter Tales series, on Jan. 14 at 6:30 p.m. mountaineer Carolyn Gunn will give a slide show presentation on her 1984 expedition to Mount Everest.
The presentation highlights the extreme climbing world and cultural aspects traveling through China and Tibet and to the East Rongbuk Glacier.
Gunn, who was basecamp manager and first-aid specialist, will give an overview of the expedition’s successful climb of the North Wall to reach the highest point on Earth. She climbed as high as the North Col at 23,071 feet.
“The trip was back in the day when maps were scarce, and there were no outside communications,” she said.
The climb occurred only a few years after China opened Mount Everest to Western expeditions. That year, there were only four total expeditions to the famously dangerous mountain, two from the Chinese side and two approaching from the Nepalese side.
“Climbers had the mountain to themselves,” she said.
By comparison, in 2015, 259 climbers assembled at basecamp to climb the mountain, 19 perished in an earth quake. The year before, 16 climbers died in an avalanche.