STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Melissa Arnot Reid was just 25 when she summited 29,035-foot Mount Everest.

Summiting the world’s highest mountain is the pinnacle of success for any climber and Arnot Reid couldn’t believe she had been lucky enough to summit.

But, when she returned to Ketchum, she heard the whispers behind her back? Did she belong there?

Melissa Arnot Reid lived in Ketchum for nine years while training for her climbs on Everest.

Intent on proving she belonged in a man’s world, she decided to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen.

It was a goal that forced her to examine her motivation for doing so. And one that led her to summit Everest six times—the most of any Western woman.

Arnot Reid, who lived and trained in Ketchum during what she called her Everest years, shared her candid reflections on navigating life in the male-dominated world of mountain climbing Sunday night at The Argyros.

Her visual presentation was the culmination of a two-day event titled “Badass Women: Making Waves & Moving Mountains” that included a presentation by shark researcher and conservationist Jess Cramp and a Sunday Brunch-style networking event for Wood River Valley business professionals and nonprofit leaders.

Melissa Arnot Reid points out the deep crevasses that line the slopes near camp.

Arnot Reid described how she started life on the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Reservation 20 miles southeast of Durango where her father worked as a ski patroller at Purgatory Resort and her mother as an administrative assistant for Volunteers of America.

Money was tight, and the disparity became even more pronounced when they moved to the wealthier ski resort of Whitefish, Mont. Arnot-Reid earned a business degree at the University of Iowa and, after graduating at 19, she was invited to climb an 8,705-foot peak outside of Glacier National Park.

The climb changed her life.

“It gave me a sense of independence and autonomy, of working hard for something. I felt a sense of home in the mountains.”

The temporary tent city on Everest spans a mile.

She found her way to Mount Rainier where the glaciers are similar to those of bigger mountains around the world. Rainier Mountaineering, led by legendary mountaineer Lou Whittaker who had a home in Ketchum, hired the 20-year-old and she quickly climbed the ladder to lead guide.

Arnot Reid, now 42, said her choice to climb mountains was largely driven by curiosity—a desire to see what she was capable of. And four years after becoming a guide she was invited to accompany an expedition to the top of the world.

Arnot Reid told the audience that most climbing expeditions spend 60 days, or two months, on Everest. They climb to “almost the summit” three times, descending after each time in order to acclimatize.

Arnot-Reid’s bid to climb without oxygen a year after her first summit was short-circuited when she broke her ankle trekking into base camp.

Climbing on Everest includes crossing crevasses on ladders.

“My heart was broken, too,” she said.

In 2013 she tried again but was forced to take supplemental oxygen just short of the summit.

“I came home and people congratulated me for summitting, but I felt like a failure,” she said.

In 2015, after summitting Everest five times, Arnot Reid decided to attempt the climb without oxygen again after much soul searching to see if she was doing so for the right reasons. No matter that climbing to such altitudes without  oxygen is like putting a plastic bag over your head allowing just enough air to survive.

“I decided I just wanted to challenge myself personally, to see if I could,” she said.

She did things differently this time. She went with her new boyfriend Tyler Reid, who she said “was giving up everything to help me do something that mattered to me.” And, together they climbed the Tibetan side of Everest, rather than the more popular Nepal side.

They went by themselves without support.

“Upon reaching the highest camp on that side at 27,500 feet I could feel in my body it was going to work. I climbed faster than I’d ever done,” she said, eliciting a chuckle from the audience as she showed a video of herself shuffling along, telling herself, “Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.”

She spent 15 minutes on top of the world and began her descent. And, in May 2016 she  became the first American woman to summit and descend Everest without oxygen.

She topped that by returning to the United States and climbing all the high points in the 50 states in record time, traveling 20,000 miles in a sprinter van across 50 states in a little over a month.

Arnot Reid released her memoir last year titled “Enough: Climbing Toward a True Self on Mount Everest.”

She also started The Juniper Fund after her climbing partner and friend Chhewang Nima Sherpa, who had summited Everest 19 times, was killed in an avalanche while climbing with her on 23,114-foot Mt. Baruntse in Nepal.

“It was the worst day of my life,” said Arnot Reid. “I visited his wife and felt so much guilt and shame. I came back to Ketchum and pulled my shades tight.”

Arnot quit climbing but was told, “You can quit. You can never go back. But if you don’t go back, it’ll stay like this forever.”

And, so, she returned to see Chhewang’s wife and two sons, giving them the money she was making to make up for what he wasn’t making. Arnot Reid said she figured the fund might help two to four families a year. But right after she started it, 16 workers were killed on the worst year for avalanches on Everest.

Then came the deadly earthquake.

Arnot Reid still guides out of the Methow Valley where she and her husband have a guiding business. But she’s elected not to do long expeditions while her 3- and 7-year-old son and daughter are growing up.

And, yes, climbing Everest again is never far from her mind.

She says she’s seen the posts on the Internet that deride mothers for working as mountain guides while not criticizing fathers.

“I know the risk,” she said. “I want to climb Everest when my daughter’s old enough that I can ask her if she’s comfortable with my doing so. But when is that? Eight? Ten?”