ABOUT
Heidi Zimmer
My Story
When I was a 19-year-old college student, I was fascinated by a documentary about the Outward Bound School. I really wanted to take a course because I wanted the challenge and adventure, but the course wasn’t accessible to me as a deaf person. Frustrated, I decided to wait on taking the class.
When I transferred to Gallaudet University, the only liberal arts university in the world for deaf people, I saw an advertisement for the same course. I knew the time was here, so I applied and received a scholarship from the Colorado Outward Bound School (COBS).
During my 23-day mountaineering course, my patrol/group consisted of minorities and people with different backgrounds. My instructor and I were chatting and I told her that my dream was to climb Mt. Everest. I asked, “What do you think? Can I do it?” For the first time in my life, I had a positive response from a hearing person. She said, “Why not? You can do it. Go for it.”
All of my life I had always received negative and biased responses from hearing people who thought I could not do this because I was deaf.
My instructor’s simple response changed my outlook and life.
The Journey to Seven Summits
I was the first Deaf woman to reach the top of Denali and Kilimanjaro and the first Deaf person to reach the top of Mt. Elbrus. With four summits to go, I may be the first Deaf/Deafblind person to reach all the Seven Summits. I am also on track to possibly becoming the first Deaf woman person and first Deafblind person to reach the highest point in all 50 states; I have eight high points remaining.
In addition to being Deaf, I was diagnosed late in life with Usher Syndrome, a progressive loss of vision. When I learned that, I finally understood why I always had poor balance. My poor balance has made the climbs even more challenging, especially with the loose rocks, talus, and steep climbs without snow. I always carry ski poles on my climbs to help with balance.
Currently, I am working on climbing Colorado’s 14ers, and have climbed 42 of the 14ers 58 peaks, 38 solo.
Adventure has been my constant source of life since I was two years old, and I look forward to many more adventures ahead of me. I have many challenges I have overcome and will overcome in my life. I persist because my passions lie in mental and physical challenges, and of course, adventure.
The Seven Summits
The Seven Summits are the highest mountains of each of the seven traditional continents.
Climbing to the summit of all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge.
