The Alicante Genes of the Youngest Mountaineer in History to Conquer the 14 Eight-Thousanders

With the coronation of Shishapangma, Adriana Brownlee has become the youngest mountaineer to ascend the 14 highest mountains on the planet—those over eight thousand meters. At just 23 years old, she has achieved a feat that is in the hands of very few mountaineers, and she has done it in just over three years.

Although Adriana was born in the United Kingdom, the origins of her passion for the mountains must be sought in the province of Alicante, specifically in the rugged city of Alcoy, where her mother is from and where she began climbing at an early age, as she herself acknowledges.

Through her Instagram profile, this young mountaineer recounts her exploits in the mountains, such as her expedition to Annapurna a couple of years ago, where she claims to have faced "avalanches every five minutes" in an endless ascent with many stops and extreme temperatures.

Also in the Himalayas, she ascended that same year to Nanga Parbat, the eighth eight-thousander of her career and possibly "the hardest and most dangerous until that moment," where she was exposed to falling stones "the size of people at speeds of 100 km/h."

Regarding the ascent to Shishapangma (8,027 m) with which she certified her record of precocity, Adriana acknowledges that she discarded the use of supplementary oxygen tanks to increase the difficulty and add more value to her expedition. "It was a long and extremely cold climb. I still get goosebumps remembering the moment when I could finally see the summit."

Among the lessons she has learned in this ambitious three-year project is "never stop pursuing one's dreams," as well as "train hard and be prepared for the next challenge."

In other expeditions like Dhaulagiri, she was even close to dying; in fact, her parents planned her funeral after not hearing from her for 32 hours. At one point in the expedition, over 8,000 meters, both she and her sherpa ran out of oxygen and had no way to communicate with the base camp. A near-death experience from which she surely emerged stronger to achieve her Guinness World Record.

The 14 peaks that have allowed her consecration are Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Dhaulagiri I, Manaslu, Nanga Parbat, Annapurna I, Gasherbrum I, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum II, and Shishapangma.