unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are unfinished, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod or on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.
Rebecca Coles is a mountaineer. Her unfinished project is to climb all 82 of the 4000m alpine peaks with an all-female team.
Becky specialises in remote expeditions and has made first ascents in Nepal and South Georgia, Antarctica. She’s led expeditions on all seven continents, and she’s a Winter Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor and an International Mountain Leader. She has a PhD in Glacial Geomorphology.
We talked about the great number of different things that have to come together to achieve all 82 peaks, about trying to get to sleep the night before you attempt to summit, and about why Becky enjoys training military personnel.
Becky also tells me about how she motivated a judge with no walking experience to complete an ascent of Kilimanjaro, about what it feels like on a first ascent expedition when you don’t quite make it to the top, and why looking negatively at unfinished things is a dinner-party problem, rather than a personal one.
At the end of the episode, we spend a bit of time talking about Becky’s next expedition: she’s leading a 280km, camel-supported desert trek in Sudan.
Find out more about Rebecca Coles here: https://www.instagram.com/roam.mtns/
Rebecca’s piece in Sidetracked about her first ascent of Lasarmula: https://www.sidetracked.com/a-mountain-affair/
The UIAA:
Rob Johnson, filmmaker: