Dodging ‘washing machine’ boulders, near-suffocation & deadly frostbite..how I cheated death four times for world record

SUSPENDED 6,500 metres in the air on a melting ice wall in complete darkness, the climbers shuddered as another terrifying ‘ping’ filled the silence.

The chilling sound was an ice screw shooting free from a rockface on Mount Nanga Parbat, in the Himalayas, which was keeping five people alive. 

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Adriana Brownlee has become the youngest woman to climb the world’s 14 tallest mountains[/caption]

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The Brit’s first climb was the Three Peaks challenge when she was nine years old[/caption]

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She described climbing terrifying ice walls and near-fatal falls on the mountains[/caption]

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Adriana spent three years tackling the mountains, which are all over 8,000 metres tall[/caption]

Now only one metal peg secured the rope that young Londoner Adriana Brownlee and four others were abseiling down and pivotally, preventing them from falling to a certain death.

Moments later, the group would be forced to dodge “fridge freezer-sized boulders” and “missile-like” small rocks travelling at such speed they could kill with a single blow. 

These were just two of many bone-chilling near-death experiences faced by Adriana during her mission to become the youngest person to climb all 14 of the world’s tallest mountains at 23 years old. 

Earlier this month, she achieved that feat after summitting 8,027-metre Shishapangma, in Tibet, and tells The Sun her three-year world record-breaking challenge was filled with “super scary moments”.

Recalling the Nanga Parbat incident, she says the ice wall they were climbing down was melting and turning into a waterfall, meaning screws and boulders no longer remained in place. 

She explained: “It was down to the last ice screw to hold all of us on the rope. We knew the rope could break at any moment and we’d all be gone down the rock face. 

“It was pitch black and soon we could hear these sounds like missiles coming towards us. One boulder the size of a washing machine suddenly whooshed past me. It was just metres away.

“From then on it was endless rockfall during the climb down, I knew if even the tiniest pebble hit me or bounced in my direction I’d be dead. 

“It was one of at least four times when I thought, ‘At any moment right now I could die’. It was out of my hands and there was nothing I could do.” 

Adriana, who grew up in Teddington, South London, was obsessed with the mountains from the age of eight, when her dad Tony video called her after climbing Mount Aconcagua, in Argentina.

That year, she penned in a homework assignment that she would become famous for ascending the world’s highest peaks – a prediction that came true on October 7 this year.

It followed “15 years of sacrifice, dedication and obsession” including during her childhood when she would wake at 5am most mornings to go running with her dad in the rain.

Adriana missed her school prom, nights out partying with pals and even exam revision time – amusingly, studying for her maths GCSE on a mountain at 4,500 metres – to fulfill her dream.

In December 2020, she quit her university degree in Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Bath to become a full-time mountaineer and started her 14 peaks world record attempt the following June.

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Adriana climbing with her dad Tony, who inspired her to become a mountaineer[/caption]

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She even revised for her GCSEs while climbing one of the peaks[/caption]

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Adriana’s homework assigned from when she was eight vowing to become famous for climbing mountains[/caption]

Adriana says: “I was on Christmas break at the K2 winter base camp, I realised life is so short and you have to go for what you want.

“So I called the head of my course on the satellite phone to say I was going to quit. I’d experienced what being alive really was and it was being on that edge between life and death.” 

Frostbite threat

Adriana’s first climb for the attempt was the world’s tallest, Mount Everest, in China and Nepal, and from that moment on, each of the 8,000-plus-metre peaks provided perilous conditions. 

The worst was Dhaulagiri, in Nepal, where she was minutes away from death and her parents, who feared she was lost to the mountains, spent 24 hours planning her funeral. 

Adriana’s team was caught in a dangerous snowstorm and the 100km-per-hour winds were so strong she “couldn’t move forward” but that wasn’t the only problem.

“Soon after I noticed my hand was frozen solid, I couldn’t move my fingers,” Adriana says. 

I had to remain calm. I could lash out at him, lose more energy and probably kill myself or we could fight to survive

Adriana Brownlee

“I knew I had to do something or lose all my fingers to frostbite so I had to put them in the only warm place, my expedition leader’s armpits.

“Eventually the sensation came back. It motivated me to get the hell down as fast as possible.”  

She retreated to a camp where they could defrost and spent four days shielding from the storm, which depleted their supplies.

“Our power banks had run out, we had no gas left and no food but decided to go for a summit push in the snow, which was up to our waist,” Adriana recalls. 

‘Worst error’

During the climb, she felt all the energy drain from her body and after asking her guide to check her oxygen tank levels made a concerning discovery. 

“It was at zero, so was my guide’s and we didn’t have a spare bottle,” she says. “I was beginning to panic because our bodies had been relying on oxygen for the last 12 hours of the climb.

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There was one terrifying moment while absailing down a melting ice wall[/caption]

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Adriana trained two hours a day to get fit enough for the challenge[/caption]

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The 23-year-old raising the British flag at the top of 8,027metre Shishapangma[/caption]

“To go from a steady flow of oxygen to zero, your body is like, ‘What is going on?’ At that point, you could die within 10 minutes. I remember all I was thinking was, ‘We cannot die today, not on this summit.’”

Adriana instructed her guide to use his radio to ask another climber, who was already descending, to leave a bottle of oxygen for them. Seconds later, his face turned blank and he stared back at her with fear – he hadn’t packed one.

“I was like, ‘Oh s***, you’ve got to be kidding me’. Forgetting to bring a radio is the worst error you can make on a mountain,” Adriana recalled. 

“But I had to remain calm. I could lash out at him, lose more energy and probably kill myself or we could fight to survive. 

“It took every single ounce of energy we had left and 32 hours to get down the mountain.” 

As soon as they reached base camp, Adriana called her terrified parents Tony and Eva, who feared she had died because they couldn’t see her location on a tracker. 

I was shivering uncontrollably by that point and strangers who passed us had been putting jackets and jumpers on me to keep me warm

Adriana Brownlee

She says: “Because we’d run out of battery and energy from our power banks, my tracking device had died and my parents thought we were lost on the mountain. They had been planning my funeral for the past 24 hours.”

‘I fear death’

Adriana also nearly died a fourth time, when they were hit by a major avalanche while climbing Gasherbrum, in Pakistan. 

She admits: “We were very lucky. I think we had summit fever, which is where you disregard all safety and everything for the ultimate goal of reaching the summit. You make silly decisions that can cost you your life.

“Fortunately though, by the time the avalanche reached us it had broken and it was just like a powder.”

Despite putting herself in nearly fatal situations many a time, Adriana insists: “I do fear death. I don’t want to die on these mountains, I have a life to live and a family to go back to 

“I definitely fear death and that’s why I’m so focused on safety and doing everything in my power to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

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The 23-year-old nearly suffocated to death during one climb[/caption]

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Adriana is the youngest woman to have completed the challenge[/caption]

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She used to train running up and down the stairs of her university halls and made makeshift challenges to practice skills for the mountains[/caption]

Critical lesson

Adriana says she had to learn to respect the mountains and her body’s limitations the hard way. This began when she was just nine years old. 

It happened while attempting to become the youngest person to conquer the Three Peaks challenge – Snowden, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis – within 24 hours.

It took two attempts because just 200 metres away from the final summit, Adriana’s dad took her temperature and realised she was borderline hypothermic. 

She recalls: “He sat me down and said, ‘We can go for the summit so you can be the youngest and achieve your dream or we can get back down’.

“I was shivering uncontrollably by that point and strangers who passed us had been putting jackets and jumpers on me to keep me warm. 

“We’d been climbing for 21 hours by that point and I made a decision few my age would have to. To go back down to safety. 

Friends would look at me like, ‘Why are you so obsessed?’. One asked ‘Aconcagua, is that a new movie?’ I was always the odd one out.

Adriana Brownlee

“I made the right decision and that’s what saved my life. Two months later we came back and conquered the challenge.”

She described that setback as a “critical moment” in her climbing career as it taught her to listen to her body and respect the mountains.

“My mountaineering mindset started from that moment and it’s when my parents knew I would be safe climbing any peak,” Adriana says. 

“Your body can do incredible things but sometimes there is a limit and the mountains are way more powerful than we will ever be.

“I’ve known numerous people who have not listened to them or their own bodies and died because of it.” 

The enormity of Adriana’s accomplishments struck her when she was just an hour away from reaching the top of Mount Shishapangma earlier this month.

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She hopes her feats will inspire other youngsters[/caption]

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Adriana with her dad Tony, who got her into climbing at an early age[/caption]

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Adriana lives in Nepal and hopes to inspire youngsters with big dreams[/caption]

“When I could see head torches and people coming down from the summit I knew we could do it and I started to cry,” she recalls. 

“I had climbed without supplemental oxygen so my emotions were heightened all the more. There were a lot of tears when I raised the British flag. It was a very special climb.

“I don’t think it’s fully sunk in, it’s been three years of dedication and suddenly it has come to an end.

“Being the youngest woman ever to do it was an added bonus, I never started this project for the records but to challenge myself for personal reasons and self-pride.” 

Young obsession

Adriana, who lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, and runs trekking and expedition company AGA Adventures, doesn’t have plans for future challenges just yet.

She’s more focussed on celebrating. She can’t wait to be reunited with her partner, Gelje Sherpa, to go for a family meal and says she will “probably go out to a club with my friends” too.

Now she hopes to visit schools and use her platform to inspire youngsters like her, who have lofty and ‘impossible’ dreams.

She recalls: “I remember at primary school, I was always talking about mountains. Friends would look at me like, ‘Why are you so obsessed?’. One asked ‘Aconcagua, is that a new movie?’ I was always the odd one out.

“So I think eight-year-old Adriana, who wrote down her dream of climbing the tallest mountains, would be very proud of me. All of the hard work and dedication has finally paid off.

“I hope what I’ve done shows people that anything is possible, no matter who you are or where you come from. 

“If you have a goal in mind, then stick at it because life is short at the end of the day- you don’t have to get caught up on the path of study, go to university, get a job, have a family.

“Sometimes you need to take a step back and realise that there are so many opportunities in this world and you just need to say ‘yes’ more.”

You can follow Adriana on Instagram or via AGA Adventures.