Leading Ladies

Five Things To Know About Melissa Arnot

1. She attended the University of Iowa and earned a double major in Business and Health Promotion.

2. After college, she began living out of her car to save money and climb mountains.

3. She entered high at the age twelve, as a freshman at Whitefish High School in Montana. She went to college at sixteen. She first climbed Rainer at eighteen. She started working as a guide at 21. Her survival tactic was lying about her age.

4.  Arnot made her first Rainer summit in 2001 at 18 and has now made 103 summits of the 14,410 foot pea in Washington State.

5. She became the first American women too successfully hike Mount Everest and survive the descent without supplemental oxygen. She has climbed it six times since!

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