Google Doodles

I was so excited to see two female mountaineers honored with Google Doodles in 2019:

Junko Tabei

Born Sept. 22, 1939, in Miharu, Japan, Junko Tabei led a team of Japanese women to the top of Mt. Everest in May 1975. Her adventure broke ground not just as the first woman to summit Mt. Everest but for the cultural statement it made in her home country.

This Google Doodle celebrated the feats of Junko Tabei, the first woman to reach the ceiling of the earth on what would have been the legendary climber’s 80th birthday.

In 1992, Junko Tabei also became the first woman to climb the “Seven Summits” the highest peaks on all seven continents, including Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and Denali (then Mount McKinley) in Alaska.

junkodoodle

IMAGE: GOOGLE

Wanda Rutkiewicz

Born February 4, 1943, in Plungė, Lithuania, Wanda Rutkiewicz reached the summit of Mt. Everest in 1978, becoming the third woman to ascend the world’s highest peak, and the first Pole, either male or female.

In 1988, she became the first woman to summit K2 – the world’s second-highest peak – doing so without using any supplemental oxygen. Sadly, two of her fellow climbers perished on the descent from K2.

The Google Doodle appeared for Google users in Austria, Croatia, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Singapore, Slovenia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

wanda-doodle

IMAGE: GOOGLE

About Vanessa O’Brien

Vanessa O’Brien is a British female mountaineer and an American female mountaineer (as a result of her dual nationality), explorer, aquanaut, astronaut, author, and public speaker.

Vanessa has an incredible six Guinness World Records: First x 2, Fastest, Deepest, Farthest and Oldest. Vanessa is the first woman to reach extremes on land, sea, and air (the Explorers' Extreme Trifecta) following her mission on Blue Origin's NS-22 to 107km. Vanessa was the first woman to reach earth’s highest (Mt. Everest 8,848m) and lowest points (Challenger Deep 10,925m), the fastest woman to climb the Seven Summits in 295 days, and the first person to reach nearest to and farthest from the earth's core (Challenger Deep and the summit of Chimborazo.) Vanessa is the first woman to complete the Four Poles Challenge, going the farthest north * south * east * west from the top of Everest to the bottom of Challenger Deep to skiing the last degree to the geographic North and South Poles. She holds the record for the oldest woman to summit K2, the second tallest peak, at 52 years old.

Vanessa became the first American or British woman to successfully summit K2, receiving Explorer of the Year by the Scientific Exploration Society (SES) in 2018. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an Honorary Advisory Board member of the SES.

Vanessa summitted the highest peak on every continent, receiving a Guinness World Record for the fastest time a woman first achieved this goal (295 days.) Vanessa has skied the last 111 km to the north and south poles completing the Explorers Grand Slam in 11 months, the first woman to do so in under a year, and the 8th woman in the world. Vanessa ran the Boston Marathon in 2017, helping to raise money for the American Red Cross, has been shot testing bulletproof vests with a .38 long revolver at point blank range, and rode 200 mph with Mario Andretti at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

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