Lydia Bradey - From Arthur's Pass to Everest

Lydia Brady is a mountaineer, guide, and author, best known as the first woman to climb Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen.

In this episode, Lydia shares her remarkable journey from teenage tramping trips in the Lewis Pass to record-setting Himalayan ascents. She talks about the “James Bond day” that nearly ended in disaster, how she found confidence in the mountains, and what she’s learned guiding others at high altitude.
 
We also discuss how climate change is reshaping Aoraki / Mount Cook, the evolving culture of New Zealand’s alpine huts, and why reconnecting with wild places is essential for our wellbeing and our planet.
 
It’s a conversation about resilience, risk, and the deep rewards of living close to the edge.

https://lydiabradey.com/

Transcript

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Lydia 0:00

I had what I call a James Bond day. We had to descend the face of a mountain that we'd never seen. it was from about 7,000 meters. And it was in such a whiteout. I couldn't determine terrain in front of me we had two ice axes, but no rope. And there were avalanches. we got in six avalanches

Speaker 0:23

Kiro and welcome to the Tramping Life, a podcast about hiking in outro New Zealand, or as we call it here, tramping. I'm jt, and in each episode I chat with people who share passion for exploring this incredible country. We'll hear about the tracks they love, the huts they return to, the lessons they've learned, and what keeps them heading back into the bush.

Speaker 5 0:43

I guess.

Jonty 0:43

Today is Lydia Brady Mountaineer guide and author. Lydia is internationally renowned as the first woman to climb Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen. And she's gone on to guide and inspire countless others in the mountains. I'm delighted to welcome her to the podcast, Kira Lydia.

Lydia 0:59

Kira Jti. Thank you for having me.

Jonty 1:01

I'd like to start with the beginning. So what were your first memories of being in the outdoors?

Lydia 1:06

My mother sent me on a mountain craft course that in the olden days was run by the Department of Education in at ROA New Zealand. And this was an Arthur's pass. I hadn't even picked up a ruck sack before, went along and it was two weeks or 10 days of exploring Arthur's pass at a pretty small level because we were probably quite a high ratio to the instructor or the guide, and I really loved it. I was too intimidated by it, but I really loved it and I thought, oh, it's too hard and it's too scary and it's too foreign for me. But then I kept thinking about it and thinking about it. And then I joined a tramping club and it's tramping clubs that really got me started.

Jonty 1:47

What inspired your mom to send you on that course?

Lydia 1:51

I'm not really sure, tell you the truth. She didn't have much money, but maybe it was quite, I'd say it was quite heavily subsidized. and she knew that I didn't, I really struggled with sports, so I was really academic, but I couldn't do a handstand and I was always last at running races and I was teased at how I walked, I don't know, maybe she thought that I'd like something like that wasn't an organized sport.

Jonty 2:15

So she or you or the rest of your family were not outdoorsy people?

Lydia 2:19

She grew up on a farm. She had to be outdoorsy. She liked walking. She was a killer walker. She'd just go for walks. This is in Christchurch. She just go walks and along from where we lived and up to the port hills and along the top and down the other side. Walking was what she did. Probably less so as a solo mother, and she used to bike to school 'cause we didn't have a car, bike to school to work. She probably figured that a thing that had rules because of safety rather than rules because of rules would be up my alley more.

Jonty 2:49

And then do you remember some of your early trips with the Tramping club?

Lydia 2:53

Absolutely. So I remember The trip that turned the corner from, seeing where it would go. I was curious about where this tramping would take me, but I wouldn't have been able to articulate that. Like I was 14 or 15, something like that. Then I was on a three day trip, maybe it was Queen's birthday. In the Lewis Pass. And there was the Christchurch Tramping Club and the Peninsula Tramping Club, which was much smaller. One, based outta Christchurch. And I was with the PTC and we were all camping in a valley. Day two, it snowed and snowed, and we did some socializing and the valley was covered in snow. You don't get that very much. You know how beautiful the beach trees look with snow. They just are so beautiful. And then it cleared up the next day, one of the more experienced trampers, who is a mountaineer, he said we can join the Christchurch Tramping Club and we can climb up to the top of the mountain range and then go along the top and then just drop down to where the car is. And I went that sounds amazing. So let's go. And of course it was hard. That was the moment. that's when I like, why do I want to be in valleys? This is going along the top so you get a view every time and every bump is a new view. and I'm crampon and there's no bush. I like bush, I like plants, but my friends joke, I have a three hour bush tolerance and then I just wanna be out. So that was it. that tops trip as we used to call it. and tramping, was the turning point for me.

Jonty 4:19

So did you continue with the Tramping Club or did you join the Alpine Club then to get higher up?

Lydia 4:23

Yes and yes. I joined the Christchurch Tramping Club 'cause they had quite a few, quite serious mountaineers. and then I joined the Canterbury Mountaineering Club and I think I was one of the first two women to join. I was still quite young then. Maybe 16, 17, something like that. And then the Alpine Club, when I could, in those days, you had to actually do some decent climbing before you joined the Alpine Club. So I got taken on climbs and I learned quickly that, if you can't contribute. To technical skill and experience and decision making of course. 'cause that's what it's about. Then you contribute by always making sure that you are melting more snow. If you're camping in snow or you carry as much as you can or you just contribute. You have to contribute in other ways. And learning that early, opened a lot of doors for me

Jonty 5:11

in the Tramping Club. Was there a reasonable kind of gender mix? I've seen photos back in the day and there was actually quite a lot of women involved in tramping, but maybe not in mountaineering, obviously as you say, if you're the second to join.

Lydia 5:21

Yeah, exactly. Quite a lot of women in tramping, lots of women in tramping. But not very many women in mountaineering.

Jonty 5:27

The perception of risk as well, that was an issue?

Lydia 5:30

It's quite interesting, I think, yes, especially if you have children. I truly think hormonally, you go through a period and you may never get out of it, of being more fearful. Of actually being more afraid of injury and hurt because I think you've got things to do. Either you are getting older or you are having children. And I've talked to quite a few women about this women who've done some rad things, like really extreme downhill mountain bike competition. then they go, oh my God. And then all of a sudden all I was feeling is I just didn't wanna crash. I was really afraid of crashing because they had, maybe some big hormonal change. Possibly it was menopausal, possibly it was having children, it exists. Men can get it too. But we don't really discuss that much about how our emotions can be changed.

Jonty 6:20

Did you have any near misses in those early days? Exploring the Southern Alps. Yep.

Lydia 6:25

I, have had a handful of. Very close calls and one particularly extreme one that for sure I got PTSD from, but fortunately only for a few days. In Himalayas. So I've had one or two, very spooky close calls in AO New Zealand when I was younger. And then in 1987, so quite a long time ago in India, I had what I call a James Bond day. We had to descend the face of a mountain that we'd never seen. We had no map for because you couldn't get maps in those days. it was from about 7,000 meters. And it was in such a whiteout. I couldn't determine terrain in front of me and we had two ice axes, but no rope. And there were avalanches. we got in six avalanches half, buried in a couple and nearly got popped off the steep section from small avalanches. We dug an emergency, snow holes, and then avalanche came down. Fortunately, John was on the outside and the snow cave collapsed on me and buried me in the mountain and blah, blah, blah,. It's like really big epic. And I was with a guy called John Muir, who some people may know, and he's one of Australia's really most standout explorers. He's traversed Australia's solo with no form of communication or personal locator, beacon. Yeah. And he built a cart with wheels and first of all, the big wheels wouldn't work 'cause they get stuck in mud. But then he got skinny wheels and he it an arid zone cruiser and he'd have to tow his water. So the longest gap between water was 30 days. Just putting things into that. No emergency located beacon or anything. This is some time ago. So the guy had, resources and was very strong and I too was strong in those days. we survived by combination of luck and resourcefulness. So this gave me a big ticket of understanding about how much I could really pull on my own resourcefulness to climb. That was at altitude, so that was in India at 7,000. I went straight from India to Pakistan and made the first ascent of an 8,000 meter peak of any woman from the southern hemisphere. This is immediately afterwards. And I possibly made the first, alpine style ascent from the bottom to the top without oxygen by a woman. The only thing is I went from advanced base camp and not base camp, and so you cannot technically say it's an alpine ascent because you didn't go from base camp. So that is fair too, but just to put it into the big picture, It was out there. by that time I was into climbing big time. the Epic in India on was probably my fourth Himalayan expeditions. They started small, and then I went straight to Pakistan fifth. And then the next year I did two 8,000. And then the next year I went to K two and Everest, three days off in Capmandu. In between, between, what was I thinking? But anyway, here I am still just

Jonty 9:15

And how much was record setting a motivator for doing those?

Lydia 9:19

Our record setting is a big motivator 'cause it helps fund your expeditions, but it's not the reason you. Everyone's different. But I would see echoes of how I felt with all my friends. And of course, if we can put first female ascent of Everest without oxygen all these other things, the more first you can, the more, fortune you would have in getting some support. And these expeditions are not cheap. Proportionally, Everest would cost less nowadays, proportionally to what we earn. And Everest costs a lot. Maybe not the permit. the permit wasn't very expensive, to Everest in the olden days, but it was, limited, so it was about a seven year wait to get a permit. So lots of people shared permits and there was lots of and of course it wasn't, there was no internet, so there'd be lots of writing and then faxing came along and you say there's two people space on this permit, would you like to buy on? And because we've had one for five years and now we're going next year. things were a lot different. it's a motivating factor, like if you have to get up and put those frozen wet socks on The motivating factor is that if you have a big long day, you'll be able to get over both these passes before either weather comes in or because you're going to do a whole lot in a long weekend. And your motivation is to see if you can pull that off, or if you get, onto the top of the early enough, then you'll be able to, get that summit before you have to drop down to the side And that summit will mean that you've climbed all the 3000 meter peaks It's also what you want to do. you use all those motivating factors to keep spurring you on when you go, oh, I have to really get up in my lovely sleeping bag. So I think we shouldn't disting factors, It's really good for us to understand that they're good kickstarters for that sitting up and putting the stove on.

Jonty 11:02

And how did you transition from just doing the mountaineering and the climbing to do the guiding?

Lydia 11:07

I had done some mountaineering and climbing obviously, and then I'd gone to university and did a physiotherapy degree. It was four years and two years trying to get in, even though my marks were very good. And then, and then I got basically in just involved in doing things like rock climbing and domestic stuff. And by then life and, this is common thing that people go, just, life just takes over. And it's so easy to see that can happen to people for all of their life. It takes quite a lot of self. Review to go look, I'm saying, oh, I'd really like to climb. I dunno, let's just say Iki Mount Cook again. Or I really like to climb TCO or in the Darrens. Or I really like to go to this country, but actually all I do is say, I really like to do that. And so suddenly you go, you have to go if I keep doing this, all I'm gonna do is say about it. And so I was also really missing having adventures overseas. And I was with a different partner who. Didn't really want to go overseas as much, but that, that was fine. But he did say he did. And so then I realized that he didn't, and I found myself some work overseas guiding in Mongolia. And I ended up going to Mongolia in total five times and quite relatively early after Russia had left it only 10 years after Russia had left Mongolia. And it was super interesting and super raw and just an amazing part of my life. And then that got me into guiding and I started guiding in, New Zealand. and then I did a guides course and, realized how many doors had opened. But it took me a while to actually understand how big the guiding on the Himalayas was. it wasn't something I really knew about. So we are talking. Late 1990s, early two thousands, and I wasn't in that world. And even in New Zealand, the guiding world, especially the expedition guiding world and the climbing world is often, but always, but often quite separate. and, operates on different rules, operates with a different group of people. Even in the Himalayas it's quite different. Quite separated. So when I discovered that there was high attitude guiding, I go, oh, that's got my name on it. But then, you are just one woman trying to get into a job that there's lots of big, strong men wanting to do so you have to you have to work at it.

Jonty 13:43

How much of your guiding career has been, the Himalayas and big trips overseas versus doing domestic, guiding in New Zealand?

Lydia 13:50

Time-wise, about 50 50. Yeah. But number wise, you do more jobs here, but I do love going overseas. I love the journey. I love the whole, you land and you've gotta work in a place. And of course, you'd like to land and just go to a hotel. Being a client is, pretty nice. Somebody else sorts things out. It's pretty nice. But it is quite cool working because you are working with Pakistanis or you are working with Nepali, or you are working with people from Latin America and. Therefore you see different windows and you suffer a bit more, but you are the one that they drag off to the guides tent to do, an impromptu music, party thing because you are part of guides. There's a little bit of fluidity. Bottom line, I find it, that's an honor to be able to guide people at altitude. When you get up there and you've got all that work and here you are, it doesn't matter what altitude you're talking about. 5,000 meters is high altitude. It's more than a number, but it doesn't represent, more and better being higher. It's just such an honor to be, on a trip with somebody and pulling it off and making it happen is fantastic.

Jonty 14:59

What are some of the harder trips you've guided in New Zealand?

Lydia 15:03

So Iraqi Mount Cook is is to me, I like to say that nobody is the same after they climb Iraqi, we were really privileged a year and a half ago to spend some time with ua. who are the caretakers of Iraqi Mount K, including of course, raki. And we spent five days together. Some, of the, people from the Marai and some mountaineers. And we're all different mountaineers. some of us didn't even know each other that well. We just knew of each other. And we talked about cultural differences and values in the mountains, and it was really fantastic to be able to share that. climbers had a really strong spiritual and cultural attachment to these mountains. And that's when I started verbalizing and I realized, this is what I really believe that you change after you clima this mountain. it's hard. It's technically hard, even by its easiest route. It's a really big day and it's, consequential. It's hugely consequential, meaning you don't trip up on your cramp box or you're gonna kill at least. Yourself of not two people. you don't knock rocks down. 'cause you could cut your rope or you could hit somebody else. If there's other people on the route, the ice cliffs can fall on top of you at different times, so I'm just making it real, but it's so beautiful. It's so dramatic. It's such an amazing mountain. You see the whole curve of Ana, you know, the spine of the ocean going up northeastern, southwest of you and the ocean on both sides. It's just, it's phenomenal.

Jonty 16:31

And in your decades climbing, have you seen the impact of climate change?

Lydia 16:35

Oh yeah, hugely, when I started climbing in the late seventies, there was no Tasman Lake at all. And, especially on a te tear aspiring, that's jaw dropping because it always has looked to us as if the bonne glassy is really fat and very deep. And now all of us realize that actually it was a quite a fat, but now disappearing veneer over a big rounded rock and the structure. So there used to be a sort of a gully if you like, which afforded you, an easy passage from Colin Todd Hut, which is quite high on the ship owner ridge near the West coast, underneath, TT is firing up and then down towards French Ridge. And now this is where the glassier is going to separate. So you have to totally avoid the gutter which was just like, just walk in the gutter. It's a compression zone. There's no crevasses. Let's just go and. Now it's something that you might struggle to get through, accepting extremely early season after a good snowfall.

Jonty 17:36

I guess it generally it's making things more difficult

Lydia 17:39

yeah, it's making access more difficult and I think on average, I would say, and I'm totally happy to be corrected, but I think most people would agree that on average it's going to make access more difficult for a very long time because we have a lot of rotten rock, and of course there's bits of bedrock if you like, that's not quite so bad in places. So the glassier falls away and it's been rumbling down and on a whole bunch of bull bearings, those bull bearings, IE moraine or lo then left sanding and they will collapse down until they reach the angle of repose. And then of course how long does it take for cushion plants to, colonate rock quite a long time. So we are at that point where the loss of the glassier is so rapid that we've still got, very big gaping holes. We've got big. Glacial waterfall holes where there's just this bottomless pit, right? Hard up against Thera, for example, or a bit of bedrock. Eventually the G Glassier will go down and disappear and some of those rocks will fall down and things will become more stable. We're talking, a few hundred years and then access becomes a bit easier again, I presume, or maybe it never will

Jonty 18:48

so there's that impacting your, the guiding, 'cause clients need creative skills. To do these trips?

Lydia 18:53

It used to be that we would climb Iraqi Mount Cop anytime from late October, November to March. So the normal guiding route is up. Glassy called the Linda Glassier, which in my youth never went up. See, I used to call it the descent route, but it. Now gets cut off with crevasses much earlier on average. So if people want to climb Iraqi Mount Cook, they really need to be looking at it in November. And if they're lucky, a December window.

Jonty 19:22

And what are some of your favorite alpine huts to stay in?

Lydia 19:26

Location. It's gotta be pioneer. because Pioneer is at the top of the Fox glassier. And no matter how many times I say, oh, you go out, I'll cook dinner, I've got lots of sunset photos, I can't help myself, then oh, I'll just put dinner on hold and go out and take a photo, and then I come back and then someone will say, oh, it's looking really good now. And it goes on for an hour and a half, and it's just ridiculous. But I have a lot of sunset photos from there, sunsets into the ocean and you're up on the glassier. That's really beautiful. Hot culture is really changing. The trampers who are listening to this will know what I'm talking about, and it's something that we, I don't know really what to do, but, Now we've got personal locator beacons. You don't have to sign into the hut box for search and rescue. traditionally if someone was, overdue or missing, the helicopter would stop at the hut. The person would run outta the helicopter. Look at the hut book. They went up to do the ex buttress on Lena Fell peak seventh highest in New Zealand. Or they were doing the North Shoulder on Tasman, but now of course you've got your PLB and your inReach and all these things. and now of course you're gonna have your cell phone soon. so people don't sign into the Hut books. And it's just like when I grew up, I was taught, you don't leave a hut unless you sweep the floor and you put the benches up and you wipe the table down and you fill the firewood up if you're a tramp and so on, so forth. That culture is missing I was just in Pioneer Hut recently and there these five really nice guys, but they're really filthy. And they refused to sign in the Hut book and the hut had been full for the last two or three weeks, but it was three weeks since anyone's put one name in the book and they refuse to sign the Hut book. I may have misjudged them, but they may not have bothered, wanted to pay their hut fees And anyway, the booking system is a really great system, but you still can have people turn up and so you should, that's the whole idea. The hut is shelter from the storm but the culture is really changing and things are really filthy. people take their little gas canisters in so they can't boil up a big pot and just clean everything really well and rinse it all off and have it nice and clean so you know, you can pick up a plate and it's really greasy and it's just somebody else will do it or I don't care. And this nurturing of our environment, Reflects on how you look after yourself and how you look after the people that are around you. Whether you love them or you don't even love them, but they're just your neighbor or it's just, it's really sad because we're going to lose all our huts. cause if no one pays any fees and no one looks after them, they deteriorate very quickly.

Jonty 21:59

To finish up with what's on your, bucket list for New Zealand?

Lydia 22:03

So now I've got my legs a little bit more back. From having a knee replacement, there's a couple of mountains down in aspiring national park that I've always wanted to climb and I've really wanted to climb Mount Alba, but I do have to go with someone who's, reasonably competent climber and it would require carrying reasonable mount 'cause you cannot fly into the bottom of it. Mount Alba's up the wilkin, late in the season. I think it becomes a bit more problematic. So I may be away early this season and not have a chance. So there's another season that goes by. The thing with climbing versus tramping is that you cannot climb everything all the time, but you can tramp a lot of it. And so it's much more conditions dependent. And the conditions for me, I need better conditions, say a bit more snow cover that's frozen. So I need a frost and some good snow cover, so that's early in the season versus someone who's like really good technically and super fast at moving. They could probably get through terrain that I may have done when I was younger, but, I'm not quite so fast on so the range of possibilities, for any kind of route, slips away. I'd like to do a few more top strips and that hopefully will continue till I'm a little bit older as well. I'd really like to just say one thing that, before we close and that's that, nature is really beneficial for all of us. And I think that it doesn't matter how you experience it, but we know that physiologically just being in rough terrain stimulates parts of your brain that aren't completely unstimulated when you are living in a built environment. So you make your brain more robust and it's really beautiful and you won't protect the world unless you know what that world is that you want to protect. it nurtures us and it teaches us to make decisions and then makes our lives a whole lot richer. So

Speaker 23:55

Thank you so much for listening to the Tramping life. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please follow the podcast in whatever app you use. Tell a friend about it and consider leaving a rating or a review. It really helps more people discover the show. you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at the tramping life, one word@gmail.com.