Inverness woman has climbed the highest peak on every continent

Neighbors in Inverness have seen Suzanne Nance dragging her improvised sled mounted on skis and loaded with weights around outside, even when no snow litters the ground.

As she labors hauling her cargo, some sympathetic drivers stop to offer her a ride home.

The 50-year-old adventurer hardly needs transportation, as she's used to traveling great heights and distances. The weighted sled is part of Nance's training regimen preparing her to ascend the steepest mountain peaks in the world.

She's among a select group who have climbed the highest peaks on each of the seven continents and skied over both the North and South Poles. Doing all that is called the Adventurer's Grand Slam.

Nance is now a fitness trainer. She completed the Slam in 2007, but health and personal concerns prevented her from touting her accomplishments. Occasionally during her travels, someone knowledgeable offers congratulations, but that rarely happens stateside.

"America itself does not honor its climbers as well as European countries," Nance said.

The summits of Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Denali, Vinson and Everest are six of the peaks that make up the Grand Slam as the highest peaks on their respective continents. The highest peak in Oceania has been disputed. Some believe it's Carstensz in Indonesia. Others claim it's Kosciusko in Australia, the mountain Nance climbed.

The voyages aren't safe, and Nance recalls "Into Thin Air," the book which chronicles a climb up Everest where eight were killed and others stranded in a 1996 storm. Nance is thankful she's never been part of a group that left a climber behind. The closest she came was when a diabetic climber's insulin froze overnight. Fortunately, another climber slept with another supply, keeping the medicine warm so the climber could continue the trek.

Photos and passport stamps provide proof of Nance's adventures and capture images of friends she made in the process. Nance was matched with others with the fitness level and financial means of making these trips through community groups found online and elsewhere. There are no plaques or certificates issued recognizing her feats. There's no real governing body or group charged with keeping records.

Nance didn't start climbing with the goal of scaling all seven summits. She started with Kilimanjaro in 2004 at age 46, saying she wanted to see the mountain's snow before it disappeared. Melting glaciers through the years could soon eliminate the snow top.

Proper records bring credibility, which would allow Nance's words to carry more weight, as she's pursuing a career as a motivational speaker. Take the confusion surrounding a recent news story published nationally last week.

The article featured Alison Levine, who completed the Grand Slam in May. Levine took a ski path over the South Pole called the Messner Route, and she's the first American to do so. About 30 people have taken that 600-mile route.

Some news outlets published the story with a misleading headline stating Levine was the first American woman to complete the Grand Slam. Levine said she never made that claim.

"There are many ways one can compete the Grand Slam," Levine said. "With regard to the Poles, you could fly all the way to the Pole in a plane and jump out and tag it, you could ski what is known as 'the last degree' to the Pole, or do a full Polar expedition which entails being out on the ice for six to eight weeks, maybe longer if the weather is crappy ..."

Nance skied a different route, which took her 10 days through the South Pole. She has admiration for Levine - "Sixty days out on the South Pole was unbelievable," Nance said of Levine - but wants recognition, too.

Nance and Levine belong to 7 Summits, an online community for climbers. Its founder, Harry Kikstra, does keep some records of who has scaled the peaks, culling together the information from various sources. The list shows 275 have completed the challenge. Levine's name will bring the total to 276 since American Dick Bass first accomplished it in 1929.

Starting with Kilimanjaro and ending with Everest, it took Nance two years and 83 days between her first climb and the seventh. She's a Palatine High School graduate, but left the flat plains of the Northwest suburbs for college at the University of Alaska, which cultivated her interest in climbing. She spent an extra year after graduation in the state.

"When I first lived in Alaska, I thought climbers were dumb," she joked.

She studied arctic marine science and later moved to Seattle where she worked in biochemistry, eventually doing cancer research.

Besides being in extraordinary physical shape, climbers must have the mental endurance to cope with extreme weather conditions. On Everest, Nance said, it dipped to -25 degrees Fahrenheit. And forget about breaking out a heat pack at 23,000 feet above sea level -- those plastic pouches need oxygen for the iron to get hot.

"You don't even bring them up the top of Everest," Nance said.

Permits are also required. In Nepal, $13,000 buys an individual permit to climb Everest. That gave Nance no margin for error while climbing - she couldn't afford to fail. Travel to Tibet was the most costly trip, she said.

"I had only one shot pretty much financially and time-wise at all of these," she said, but the exception was Cerro Aconcagua in Argentina, where she needed two tries.

She's dealt with the normal assortment of cuts and bruises, but her biggest injury was when her hand got tangled up in rope at while descending Everest at 17,000 feet. She couldn't lift up the injured arm for two days. Imagine how that felt while dragging down a sled and backpack weighing up to 150 pounds with an oxygen tank. Nance, who retains a slender build, said at her peak shape she weighs about 130 pounds.

"I try to beef up for these, I always like to go with what I say is a little beer belly," she said. "Because you do lose weight, I never get to be the one that loses 20 pounds, though."

Above a certain altitude, oxygen-deprived brains can cease functioning entirely logical, which can make it more difficult to appreciate the scenery at the top. Nance says she has trouble enjoying her time on the peaks since she's already thinking about making a safe descent to reunite with her daughter, Mikayla, and son, Colton. Both are now college aged.

"Sometimes it's hard to stay and look at the beautiful snow crystal formations in front of you," Nance said. She even took yoga classes to help her slow down to better savor the moment.

There are few women, like Nance, who proudly call themselves "mountaineers." She struggles to find proper-fitting clothing and other equipment, as manufacturers don't see the profit in making women's lines. That makes simple tasks like going to the bathroom difficult. The lengths may match, but underwear doesn't line up the same way for men as does women.

"I am not a small man," Nance said.

Nance last climbed two years ago in Bolivia. She's open to motivational speaking and expanding her fitness career. But she hasn't closed the door on climbing yet.

"You never know what the next mountain will bring," Nance said.