Climbing Life's Mountains -- Annapurna Pioneer, 20 Years Later

Arlene Blum, over a mound of shrimp and crab-laden salad, talks about climbing. High-altitude climbing. The sort that soars to tops of best-seller lists and is best chronicled on IMAX-size screens.

Blum, in town to talk about mountaineering and promote the reissuance of her book "Annapurna: A Woman's Place" (Sierra Club Books, $16), led the first successful American ascent of Annapurna, the world's 10th-highest mountain, in October 1978. It was the first time women had climbed this mountain, and the expedition dismissed an attitude that female climbers didn't have the strength and psychological temerity to summit an 8,000-meter peak.

The expedition, which included Piro Kramar of Vashon Island, was financed largely with the sale of T-shirts that read: "A woman's place is on top: Annapurna."

Annapurna made Blum a pioneer. She says she would not do it again.

Back then, she explains, she had a certain optimism that "one could beat the odds and climb safely." She wasn't naive about the risks of high-altitude climbing. Her college boyfriend, who got her into climbing, was killed by an avalanche.

But on the Annapurna expedition, within days of two members reaching the summit, two other members of her team were killed making a second summit attempt.

"Annapurna is very bittersweet. Would you make a climb if you know someone's going to die? No, it's not worth it."

She was single and childless at the time. Now she's the mother of a 12-year-old daughter, Annalise. Motherhood, she says, made her less willing to take life-threatening risks. A most satisfying climb now is a trip in the Cascades.

Not that Blum would ever tell any other climber, especially one who's female and a mother, not to take on the Himalayas.

Blum knew Alison Hargreaves, a wife and mother of two who was killed summiting K2 in 1995, and whose death triggered some derisive press about the selfishness of mothers who do high-altitude climbing.

There remains a double standard about women and climbing, Blum notes. How "a jillion men do it and no one says a word." Hargreaves loved climbing. She had the optimism of being very young, Blum says. "She felt she could do it. But I don't think anyone can make those choices for anyone else."

In Portland the previous night, on another speaking engagement, Blum encouraged an all-women team from the Northwest who are soon headed to Cho Oyu. She asked them if any had young children. None do. She said: "Be careful. It's dangerous."

Blum lives with her daughter in Berkeley, Calif. She holds a doctorate in biophysical chemistry from the University of California. She lectures about leadership and offers classes on cross-cultural communication to business people, especially Silicon Valley clients now interacting with colleagues in India.

A gregarious woman standing 5-feet-10, with unruly hair the color of a good French roast, she says horseback riding was considered "adventurous" when she was growing up in Chicago and Iowa. Then she moved to Oregon to attend Reed College, and a boyfriend invited her to climb Mount Hood. She climbed Everest. She led the first women's climb to Mount McKinley.

As a thirtysomething, she had two ambitions: Annapurna, and then traversing 2,000 miles in the Himalayas, which she completed in 1981 and '82.

After 20 high-altitude adventures, Blum says having a family was the next best one she could undertake.

Annapurna, though, continues to inspire.

A five-page single-spaced thank-you letter is in Blum's purse. Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic astronaut, says a Blum speech motivated her to go to college. Not long ago, the Dartmouth College women's crew team showed her its boat, named "Annapurna."

"And these were women who hadn't even been born when we did Annapurna," Blum says happily.

Her speech today is at 7:30 p.m. at the Mountaineers club, 300 Queen Anne Ave N., Seattle. Tickets ($6 for members, $8 for nonmembers) will be available at the door.