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Bio:
Heidi Howkins
Sponsorship Coordinator and Climber Ridgefield, CT Age: 32
The expedition's sponsorship coordinator, Howkins, 32, of Ridgefield, Connecticut,
also is one of the team's most visible members since becoming a professional
climber and expeditioner. This is her second K2 attempt and fifth consecutive
8,000-meter expedition in the past five years. She hopes to become the first
American woman to reach the summit of K2. Last year, she tried Everest, and
in 1998 she reached the shoulder of K2, around 7,000 meters, on the South
side. She was expedition leader for both those climbs. On K2, she stumbled
upon the body of French climber Maurice Barrard from the 1986 tragedy. And,
during the hike out, a serac collapse launched an avalanche that killed a
porter and injured one team member. In 1997, she tried Kangchenjunga,
reaching the base of the summit pyramid. At that time, it was the highest
point reached by any woman to survive the descent. A year earlier, she
succeeded on Gasherbrum II, during a single 48-hour summit push from base
camp.
A single, divorced mother with a 7-year-old daughter, Howkins recently
became engaged again, to a Toronto climber who is an outdoor rep. She lives
with her parents, who help with child raising while she climbs and travels to
promote her career. She graduated with a B.S. in mathematics from Wellesley
College, then pursued graduate studies at M.I.T. in math and logic. This
year, she also is continuing her SupPorters Project to bring donated gear to
poorly equipped Balti porters and hopes to establish a school and clinic at
the village of the porter who was killed in an avalanche two years ago. Despite her obvious ability to
promote climbing, she maintains "the event is the team" and when she gets on
the mountain she leaves behind the hype. "For me," she sums up, "the
motivation for climbing mountains is a spiritual one."
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