Wife Follows Everest Ascent Via Internet

When your husband is climbing to the top of the world, the least you can do is go to work early.

Sheila Murphy, a nurse anesthetist at the University of Washington Medical Center, has been tracking husband Don Beavon's progress over the Internet during his ascent of Mount Everest. Murphy doesn't have a computer at home, so she's been arriving early at work to log on.

Yesterday morning, after she logged on, the screen flashed the headline she had been waiting - and wishing - for: SUMMIT!

Beavon, a Lynnwood resident, was among 21 climbers who reached the 29,028-foot summit yesterday. He is part of the 11-member Everest Environmental Expedition, which reached the summit of Everest via the southeast-ridge route.

As part of its climb, the California-based expedition is helping clean up the mountain by collecting discarded oxygen bottles and tent remnants.

It'll be a few days before Murphy expects to talk by phone to her husband from Everest base camp.

Beavon, 42, works as a respiratory therapist at Highline Community Hospital in Burien. He has been climbing for 20 years and has made about 350 ascents throughout the world. Last year he reached the top of Cho Oyu, one of the 10 highest mountains in the world.

A longtime member of the Mountaineers in Seattle, he became interested in climbing as a boy growing up in Washington, D.C., said his father, Everyl Beavon. The senior Beavon and Don's older brother Fred also climbed.

"There's a story he likes to tell," Everyl Beavon said yesterday. "Once, we visited Washington (state). His older brother and I were to climb Mount St. Helens. But he was 12 - `too young to climb,' I said. He was so disappointed. He claims now that's when he made climbing the uppermost thing in his mind."

Sheila Murphy climbs as well. And having climbed with her husband to 14,000 feet made it possible for her not to worry much during this Everest trip, she said.

He has natural ability and incredible strength, she explained.

He made it a point to get to know most of the other members of the expedition beforehand, she said.

Since 1953, when Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit, 700 people have successfully made the ascent - and nearly 150 people have died. Most recently, the dangers and expense of climbing the mountain were recounted in the best-selling book "Into Thin Air" by Seattle writer Jon Krakauer.

Nonetheless, "Everest has always been his goal," Sheila Murphy said.

Don Beavon is likely to arrive home sometime next month.

Along with his wife, those anxiously awaiting his return are his four daughters: Brianne, Samantha, Terra and Annapurna.