EDITED VERSION...

By Anne Groebner

Photos submitted

In 1938, Kay Alderton was born in the small sawmill town of Laona in northern Wisconsin. She was born breech, which I’m told is feet first, and from what I can tell, she hit the ground running and she hasn’t stopped. She’s a mountain climber, a trail runner, a river runner, a skydiver, a backpacker, a marathon runner, mountain biker, cross-country skier, ice skater and was an ICU nurse for over 30 years — and she always carried the biggest pack! Today at 87, she still hikes several miles every week. In fact, she still plans, schedules and leads the hikes for TRACKS’ “Up-The-Hill Gang” hiking group in Pinetop and does trail work! On a clear day, you might find her working on top of her roof — a quality she carried over from her mountain climbing days — no fear of heights! I would say, Kay Alderton has no fear of just about anything.

Growing up in the great north woods of Wisconsin is not for the faint of heart. Alderton was one of seven kids. They had no running water, and in the winter, she would have to carry a teakettle of hot water to melt the ice off the pump, prime it, pump it and then haul the water back to the house. It wasn’t until high school that they got running water and indoor plumbing. Hauling water, hauling wood for the wood stove, working the large garden and pushing a non-motorized lawn mower was just part of her life back then. She called it her basic training.

Alderton earned a scholarship to a pre-med school in St. Paul, Minnesota, but followed her boyfriend to Phoenix. They got married and had six kids in seven years. Her marriage ended in divorce, and her husband took the kids while she went back to school. She graduated from Glendale College in 1974 with a degree in nursing, but her husband wanted to keep the kids and raise them on his family’s farm back in Wisconsin. She stayed in Phoenix to pursue her nursing career. “They were established in my hometown with the same teachers I had growing up and learning good work ethics,” she said, “so I left them knowing I would still see them often.” She kept her ex-husband’s name and never remarried.

Single and looking for something to do, Alderton joined the Arizona Mountaineering Club and started rock climbing. One of her first feats was establishing the luminaries on Piestewa Peak (its former name was Squaw Peak). For fifteen years, she and other club members would carry 40 fifty-pound bags of sand to fill 750 luminaries along the trail. She ended it once the number of visitors reached 15,000. There was too much erosion on the trail and, because of the darkness, hikers were getting injured. It was too great a liability.

Her climbing took her all over the world. She couldn’t afford to climb Everest, so she climbed a peak that was close, with an elevation of 18,900 feet. During the climb, she could look down at Everest’s base camp and has a photo of a dark blue sky and the white peak of Everest over her shoulder.

Alderton has climbed Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world, at 19,341 feet. She climbed Aconcagua in Argentina, which is 23,000 feet and the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere. She climbed the highest peaks in Mexico: Orizaba Mountain, 100 miles south of Mexico City at 18,800 feet, and Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl (Popo and Ixta) at 17,800 and 17,600 feet — twice.

When she went ice climbing on Mount Ranier, she got caught in an avalanche that took most of the skin off her face, but she survived. She drove non-stop from Washington State to Phoenix because she had so much adrenaline. Her group received a rain check for the shortened June climb, so they went back in September, but it was storming. They went back five times before they could finish the climb.

She climbed Mount Shasta, the most glaciated peak, three times. On a climb on Orizaba Mountain, she was roped to five other people with her crampons, ice axe and harness, 20 feet apart. One climber in front of her suffered from elevation sickness and decided to sit on a 60-degree slope of ice. She saw him whiz by, and she slammed her axe to the hilt into the ice and caught him. They would have all fallen into the 2,000-foot abyss below them.

By the time she made it to the top of Mount Whitney in California, a storm had started brewing, so she descended immediately. Other climbers did not heed her warning and took shelter in the geological building at the top, which had a metal roof. One person died and several were injured.

Alderton climbed and camped on top of Pike’s Peak twice, took people to the top of Weaver’s Needle 20 times, and climbed Mount Sneffles, a 14er in Colorado and the highest summit in the Sneffles Range in the Rocky Mountains — one of her favorites. She also climbed and camped on Mount Humphreys many times, ran the 50-mile San Juan marathon in the Cleveland National Forest in 11 hours (and the first 15 miles were uphill!). And... amazingly, Alderton ran the Grand Canyon rim to rim 38 times. She said, “The North Rim would open the second weekend in May and close the second weekend in October, so I would run it both times.” — and she did it for 19 years. She trained year-round.

She was a river runner too. In fact, she ran the Colorado River from Lees Ferry all the way down to Lake Mead (274.8 miles) in 1972. That year there was so much rain the river was running at 72,000 cubic feet per second. “You felt like you were getting flushed down the toilet!” Alderton told me. According to the history of rafting, 1972’s historical flood set the record for paddling the Colorado through 72,000 cubic feet of water per second down the canyon. A cubic foot of water weighs 64 pounds. Multiply that by 72,000 and you can imagine the force behind it. And…the water was so high that it covered Lava Rock, a high point where people can stand and watch rafters rush by.

They only had 15-foot rafts — five rafts with three people on each raft. The first drop along the Colorado is six feet, and the second one is ten, which made the raft flip. One rafter fell out and lost his glasses. Alderton unrighted the raft, rowed over to him and pulled the 300-pound man back in the boat.

They couldn’t take fruits and vegetables on the trip because of limited space. During a calm spot along the river, Alderton wished for a big, fat, juicy orange. A few seconds later, a commercial raft floated by, and someone threw one to her — ask and you shall receive. Alderton ran the Green River, the Upper Salt River and the Klamath in Oregon, as well.

Alderton did the French Route — from France across Spain — of the Camino de Santiago. It is a 500-mile pilgrimage that she accomplished in 36 days carrying a 40-pound pack. The year she went — when July 25th falls on a Sunday — was a holy year.

She did Trash Tracker 10 times at Lake Powell, picking trash out of the lake, while living on a houseboat for four days and four nights. And she was on the Mountaineer Rescue Team from 1972 until 1985.

Alderton has jumped out of an airplane 200 times. She was dating a firefighter who always talked about skydiving, so she bought him five lessons for his birthday. It turned out he was all talk, so she kept the lessons, tried it and loved it. Her first skydiving lesson was also her first time in an airplane. Later, when she flew back to Wisconsin, having 99 jumps under her belt, she sat next to a guy who was nervous about flying. He noticed she was pretty calm. “You seem pretty comfortable flying; you must fly a lot,” he said. Alderton told him, “This will be my 100th flight, but I have never landed in a plane before!”

Alderton retired from nursing in 2004 and has lived in the White Mountains for 27 years. She loves to cross-country ski and hike our beautiful mountains. She has been the secretary of the TRACKS Hiking Group for 18 years and has done trail work for 22 years. Before she gets out of bed in the morning, she does 100 crunches, 50 pelvic lifts, shoulder presses, and 50 leg raises — unless she’s heading out to hike several miles or do trail work. She also works out at the gym.

She was inspired by Hulda Crooks, who climbed Mount Whitney 20 times, but Kay wanted bigger, taller mountains to climb, faster, more exciting rivers to run with higher altitudes and free falls to experience.

Kay Alderton is the epitome of courage, strength and endurance and an inspiration to us all.



There are so many other things Alderton has accomplished — mountains she’s climbed, rivers she’s run, marathons she did in record time — that I couldn’t fit in here. She told me I would have a hard time getting everything in, and she was right. When we sat down to talk, I recorded an hour and a half of her ventures, and I’m sure there are things she didn’t think to tell me. But I’m sure you get the gist. Alderton has lived a life of fearless adventure. She has no limits. She is intrepid and dauntless and any other name for a person who doesn’t let fear get in their way. Because I believe only those who dare, truly live.