On top of the world!

ARMED only with a pair of walking boots and with no previous experience of mountain climbing, Rebecca Stephens gazed up at the summit of Everest with a mixture of awe and sheer curiosity.

How could anybody, she thought, risk their lives and endure such arduous conditions for the sake of climbing a lump of rock?

A reporter on a London magazine who had journeyed to the world's highest mountain to follow the progress of a climb, Rebecca decided it was her journalistic duty to find out.

The adventure she embarked on would not only serve as her baptism into climbing; it would crystallise her determination to become the first British woman to climb Everest.

"Most climbers come to Everest following a long apprenticeship," she said. "In my case I first went there by accident. I didn't realise I was breaking the rules, but in hindsight it worked out well because it gave me a familiarity with the mountain. I knew I could deal with it."

Born in Tunbridge Wells, Rebecca never suspected she would become a mountain climber.

Her first introduction to Everest came at the comparatively late age of 27 when she was plucked from the humdrum confines of the small London magazine office where she worked to write an article explaining the fascination of the mountain to non-climbers.

She journeyed to Everest to interview a French climber and his team who were setting off along the mountain's difficult North East ridge and decided to follow them as far as Camp One.

"I thought the best way for me to find out why people climb Everest would be to try a bit of climbing myself," she said.

"The climbers I was with were a bit cautious about the idea, but one of the Sherpas called Chhwang believed anything was possible.

"Without hesitating, he emptied the rucksack he was carrying and gave me the equipment I needed -- crampons, a pick axe and a harness. I'd only had a pair of walking boots when I arrived at the mountain."

That first climb proved both completely exhausting and infinitely memorable for Rebecca.

"It's so difficult for me to describe how difficult it is to climb at that sort of altitude," she said. "It feels like such an incredible effort to fight gravity and take first one step and then another. When finally I reached the camp I just fell into the tent.

"Then, once I could collect myself, I looked out at this valley I had never seen before.

"The pure white, untouched mountain looked exquisitely lovely. We could look along the tops of the mountains we'd previously been craning our necks to see.

"Then I looked over towards the summit of Everest, the highest mountain in the world. The fact I'd managed to get myself that far up the mountain was overwhelming. That was my conversion. I knew for the first time in my life what I wanted to do. I wanted to climb this mountain."

Rebecca spent the next four years climbing in Scotland, Wales and the Alps, preparing herself for the challenge of scaling the five-and-a-half-mile peak.

When she returned to Everest, in May 1993, it was to a different part of the mountain -- the more commonly used southern route, climbed by Sir Edmond Hillary 40 years previously.

The first test she faced was the valley leading up the mountain known as the Khumbu Icefall -- a frozen waterfall that moves more than a metre a day, where huge blocks of ice can drop without warning.

Rebecca and her team had to scale its enormous crevasses by clambering across ladders, knowing all the time they could be crushed in a massive shower of ice.

After six hours of climbing, Rebecca finally made it through the icefall. Unfortunately her ordeal was far from over, for the last 1,000 metres of the mountain is unhappily known as the death zone.

"Most people die in those last 1,000 metres," said Rebecca. "It's not particularly steep or dangerous. It's simply the problem of lack of oxygen. You do not want to be up there for more than 24 hours."

Rebecca's first push for the summit ended in failure, as a result of the worsening weather conditions. Despite the risk, she decided to try again with three Sherpas, but without the other European members of her team.

"It wasn't an easy decision to make," she said. "Very high winds had been forecast. I was frightened, but the alternative was to go back home and never know for the rest of my life if I might have made it."

On the night of the climb, the summit looked surprisingly clear, although dark clouds swirled in the valley below.

"The summit looked absolutely wonderful," said Rebecca. "Stars studded the sky. But as we got ready to climb, we noticed the clouds below us.

"I thought, 'I'm young, it's dangerous, I don't want to die.' But we decided to trust the bad weather would go the other way.

"We climbed in pitch darkness. Although we had little miners' lamps on our hats, the batteries went within half and hour, but we kept going.

"It was hard work. We never managed to take more than seven steps in succession. We could look across the Himalayas and couldn't see another person in the world."

Slowly Rebecca and her team inched their way up the south east ridge and finally scrambled up to the summit.

"We weren't at the summit for more than 10 minutes in the end," said Rebecca. "But it was wonderful. The Sherpas were boundless in their excitement. We took a photograph, then reality set in. We had six hours of daylight to get down the mountain."

But why risk so many life-threatening ordeals for just 10 minutes on top of a mountain? Rebecca argues the challenge was about much more than just a Kodak moment on the summit.

Even now, she can look back on the difficulties of the climb with satisfaction and feel proud to have been the first British woman to climb Everest.

"It's interesting," she said. "In a sense you leave your femininity behind. I didn't wash for three weeks for one thing!

"About 30 women have done the climb since I did and, in a way, it's something we're suited for.

"There are some disadvantages but, on the whole, women often cope better with the high altitudes than men do."

Rebecca Stephens was a guest at Westholme School, Blackburn, where she opened the new sixth form centre.