Motherhood, ambition and risk

In the summer of 1995 images of triumph and tragedy were splashed across the front pages of the British press. The Times, the longstanding patron of heroic adventure, proudly heralded a national success story by trumpeting 'BRITISH WOMAN STANDS ALONE ON TOP OF THE WORLD' (15 May 1995). Derbyshire-born Alison Hargreaves had conquered the world's highest mountain, Everest, in a solo effort and without supplementary oxygen. She was only the second person to do so, following in the footsteps of climbing legend Reinhold Messner. By July she was back in the Himalayas, this time to repeat the feat on K2. She had spent only two weeks in the UK in the interim and crammed this time with press interviews and fleeting moments with her husband, Jim Ballard, and their two children, six-year-old Tom and four-year-old Kate. Yet, the scenes of victory were not to be repeated. Despite reaching the summit of K2 - known colloquially in the climbing subculture as 'killer mountain' owing to its high death rate - Hargreaves was caught in a violent storm during her descent.