- I've watched this one show and there's this guy
who could, like, go up to the mountain
without, like, an oxygen tank.
Can you do that?
- I can.
One time, I summited Mount Everest
without using any oxygen at all.
- So you're like a superhero?
- Pretty much.
(gentle instrumental music)
- Hello, my name is Xander.
- Hi, I'm Melissa.
- Nice to meet you.
- Yeah, nice to meet you.
What's your name?
- Justin.
- Hi, Justin, I'm Melissa.
What's your name?
- Gigi.
- What do you think me job is?
- A mom?
- (laughing) I'm a mom but I have another job too.
I climb mountains for my job.
- That's scary.
- Have you ever gone hiking?
- Yes.
- Where'd you go hiking?
- Mount Rainier, I think it was.
- Mount Rainier is the first big mountain that I climbed.
It's mostly where I work and I climb
and guide people all the way to the summit.
Have you ever climbed a mountain?
- Not that I know of.
- I really think that that stuff is dangerous.
- Did you used to hike when you were my age?
- My parents really wanted me to go hiking
'cause they liked hiking but I said,
"I don't wanna do that if that's what you like to do."
And so guess how old I was the first time I went hiking.
- Five?
- I was 20, 20!
- Geez, and now you really like it.
- And now it's my job.
- What's the biggest mountain you climbed?
- The biggest mountain that I've ever climbed is
Mount Everest and it's the biggest mountain in the world.
- Have you went to the top of it?
- All the way to the top six times.
Do you know anything about climbing Mount Everest?
- It's extremely dangerous.
- It can be extremely dangerous, yep.
- How deep is the snow?
- Hundreds of feet, like deeper than
the tallest buildings in Seattle.
Crazy, huh?
Sometimes there's big cracks and you can look down in
and you can just see until you can't see anymore.
- That's creepy.
- How much time does it take?
- What would you guess if you had to guess?
- Probably a day or two?
- 60 days.
- What?
- That's like your guys's whole entire summer vacation.
- What's your feeling when you reach the top of
any mountain but especially Mount Everest?
- It's the most scared I feel on any climb
because you're, like, literally at the halfway point
'cause you still have to get all the way down.
So I always feel, like, a little bit nervous
when I'm on the summit.
Right now we're at sea level, which means we're at,
like, zero feet above the level of the sea
and an airplane flies how many feet,
do you think, above the sea?
- 600 feet?
- So they fly 30 thousand feet,
and so that's the same height as Mount Everest.
Mount Everest is 29 thousand feet above sea level.
So you're, like, way up where airplanes fly.
If an airplane flew by you could just,
like, wave to the passengers inside. (chuckling)
On the summit of Mount Everest,
you can see until the Earth starts to tilt.
So you can see that it's round.
Like, everything just starts to drop off on all the sides.
- That's awesome.
- Yeah, it is really awesome.
- Have you, like, touched a cloud
when you are climbing a mountain?
- Yeah, sometimes they come and they're,
like, all around you.
It looks like you're on the inside of a ping-pong ball.
Everything's just white all around
and you can't tell which way is up.
- Wait, can you float in a cloud
or if you let go do you just fall to the ground?
- Well, it's like the clouds float,
but you just stay the same.
So, like, the clouds move around you,
but you can't really float.
- What kind of animals have you seen up there?
- Do you know what a Yeti is?
- Yeah.
- I've seen gigantic tracks, like,
that could've belonged to a Yeti.
- Whoa.
- I really don't think they're real.
- You don't?
I don't know what to think.
- All of those footprints are just bears.
- But bears usually walk on the four feet
and there's only two feet for the Yeti prints.
But I don't know.
- What gear do you use?
- Well, because it's so cold, one of the main things
we use is a down suit, wanna see it?
- Yes.
Whoa.
- It's basically my superhero costume.
- All you need is a little mask.
- We wear goggles or sunglasses,
so I kind of have, like, a mask.
- And then all you need is a cape.
- I think a cape would be good.
(kids and Melissa laughing)
(mom cheering)
(kids and Melissa laughing)
- Did this suit make it to the top of Everest?
- It did.
- [Kid] I feel like I can just sleep in this.
- I know, well we do.
Sometimes you don't even bring a sleeping bag,
you just sleep inside this 'cause it's so warm.
- So I heard you're actually the first American woman
to not use oxygen, right?
- Yeah, exactly.
Five times I summited using oxygen
and one time I summited without using oxygen.
- Who'd you go with without oxygen?
- With my husband and he was my boyfriend at that time,
but he asked me to marry him on the summit.
- And then were you, like, kinda scared though,
because you had to get back down?
- I was like, "We don't have time to talk about
"this right now, we'll talk about it later." (chuckling)
- Does anybody die?
- Yeah, people have died climbing in the mountains
'cause sometimes they're not prepared
or sometimes just accidents happen.
- Have you seen any dead bodies on Everest?
- Yeah, one year I was climbing and somebody had
just died, like, two days before that.
- Oh, yeah.
- And that was, I think, in some ways, like,
the saddest and scariest because I wasn't
really sure if he was dead or not,
and so I had to go and check and see if he was dead
'cause I felt bad if he wasn't dead that people were
just leaving him there but he was dead.
- Have you ever thought you were gonna die?
- If I get really scared and I think it's likely
that something bad's gonna happen I'll turn around.
I've had to turn around four times on Everest;
one time on, like, the 58th day.
When I think of all of my climbs,
I actually kind of am more proud of the
times I turned around than the ones I went to
the summit 'cause I feel like I made
really good decisions at that time.
- Yeah.
- Well, I have a question.
- Yeah?
- So what if you need to go to the bathroom
when you're climbing the mountain?
- We actually go poop inside these bags
and then you have to carry it down.
(girl laughing)
So you guys wanna see the bag that you poop in?
I have a new one, don't worry.
This is where we go to the bathroom.
This is basically a litter box inside of here.
There's, like, litter in there.
(Melissa laughing)
- Have you ever gone number two at the top of Mount Everest?
- Nope, I do a lot of planning to make sure
that that doesn't happen.
- Does the poop freeze?
- It does.
- I don't think I should be talking about this stuff.
(Melissa laughing)
- We talk about it all the time, Logan.
- Are you gonna go on Everest again?
- I don't know.
You know, I've been thinking a lot about that.
Now that I have a baby I feel like
I'm gonna take a little bit of a break
from climbing the really big mountains
because I wanna make sure that my daughter is okay
with me going and climbing those big mountains.
If your parents asked you, like,
"Is it okay if we do this thing that's dangerous,"
do you feel like you would be able to
say, like, yes or no?
- I would say no.
- Yeah, for everything?
Just 'cause you go climb Mount Everest
doesn't mean you're gonna die, you know?
- That's true but it's a pretty large risk.
- It is a big risk.
What age do you think I should wait to ask her?
- Maybe, like, 13?
- Yeah, I mean, that's probably a good age.
- How many mountains do you have left to climb?
- Well, there's so many mountains in the world
and I wanna try to keep climbing them
until I absolutely can't climb anymore.
- I thought there's, like, only eight mountains.
- There's, like, eight mountains
probably right around your house.
- I'm eight years old.
- Well, you know what, eight mountains would be
a good number for you to try to climb sometime.
- I don't think I should.
- Would you ever climb a mountain?
- Maybe one year, can kids do it?
- You can definitely climb Mount Rainier.
- Mom, sign me up.
(Melissa laughing)
- Hey, I'm Melissa.
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