First Transgender Mountain Climber to Reach New Heights

This summer, Erin Parisi is on her way to make a second attempt to conquer Mount Denali, the highest mountain peak in North America. And although it’s not the highest of the seven summits – it stands 20,310 feet above sea level – it is considered by many experienced climbers to be the hardest. As an LGBTQ hiker and climber, She and her team are about to embark on another adventurous quest. 

“I have been trying to train and get to the tops of the highest mountain on every continent: Seven Peaks, seven summits, seven continents,” said Parisi in an interview with the Los Angeles Blade. “I just finished Antarctica, which is an extraordinarily difficult climb as far as logistics, as far as dealing with the weather and the environment, mountain that’s only been climbed 2,000 times before.”

In the first attempt to climb Denali, Parisi was disappointed that neither she nor anyone on her team was able to reach the summit due to windy conditions and injuries. She managed to journal the Denali trek on Instagram.

The 45-year-old trans woman has conquered five summits, including Mount Kosciusko in Australia, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mount Elbrus in Russia, Aconcagua in Argentina, and recently, climbing 16,050 feet to the summit of Vinson Massif in Antarctica.

And after she and her team make it to the top of Denali (fingers crossed), Parisi’s next planned is to embark on the 7th and final summit climb up Mount Everest. She and her team hope to tackle the tallest of the seven summits in 2023, which also marks the 70th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s expedition. What few people don’t know is that the historic Hillary and Norgay team also included transgender journalist, Jan Morris, who died in 2020. It’s a story Parisi wants to tell.

Want to know more about transgender mountain climber Erin Parisi and her adventures? Check out the full Los Angeles Blade article here and you can also follow her on Instagram @transending7.