Never Too Old?

The story of a Spokane, WA woman who climbed the world’s highest peaks.

“I became the oldest woman to complete the Seven Summits by default, not by goal,” LeClaire says casually. “It took me weeks to even find out that I was the oldest.”

She never intended to make climbing history. In fact LeClaire, who lives in Spokane, Wash., with her husband, Jerry, didn’t climb at all until she was 51…she joined the Spokane Mountaineers mountain school, and with the group’s help, she learned the technical idiosyncrasies of the sport. She also got over her fear of rock climbing ’I couldn’t imagine myself, over 50, clinging to the side of this vertical rock,’ she says. ‘I didn’t like it all that much, but it’s all about overcoming fear. And I’ve gotten much better about that now.’”