Hilaree Nelson Was One of the Greatest Adventurers Ever

Hilaree Nelson passed away at the age of 49. Hilaree had the first ski descent from the summit of Lhotse next to Mount Everest and the first ski descent of Papsura in India.

Hilaree helped break the barriers. She wasn't one of the world's great female mountaineers. She was a great mountaineer. She became the captain of the North Face Global Athlete Team, cementing her position as one of the greatest climbers of all time.

Hilaree fell to her death after she and Jim Morrison summited the world's eighth highest peak in Nepal.

Protect Our Winters is a nonprofit advocacy group that works to educate the outdoors community and industry about climate change and mobilize them into action. POW brings athletes, such as Hilaree, to speak with students, community groups, business leaders, and others about the changes they are seeing around the globe. Hilaree said that climate change is real. I have watched it with my own eyes.

We appeared together at two events during the year. Hilaree discussed her life's work and passion, as well as some very costly mistakes, in one of the panel discussions. She said that she and her team nearly ran out of food during their attempt at the first summit of Hkabo Razi. Hilaree told us how the team broke, how she had trouble finishing the expedition, and how the experience nearly broke her.

The World Economic Forum is filled with well-known, influential and eloquent people, but often the audience gets restless. There's a lot to digest. The people listening to Hilaree were rapt. People wanted to hear more, ask a question, or just say hello after the event. A young girl came up to our table and asked Hilaree for an autograph.

I think about what makes Hilaree so inspiring and what makes great scientists inspiring. Great scientists don't put their lives at risk like Hilaree did, but they still inspire awe, admiration and requests for autographs. The ability to do things that other people can't do is shared by athletes and scientists. This could make us feel small, but that is not what I have seen. We are reminded that things can be difficult.

Great athletes and scientists are blessed with a lot of talent, but they also work hard and push themselves to their limits. We can think that if we push ourselves, we can do more than we thought. We all have the ability to do more than we have done before, even though most of us will never climb Everest.