Elizabeth Hawley, 93 years old, was born in Chicago in 1923 and in 1960 ended up in Kathmandu, Nepal working as a journalist for Time Magazine. She also did work with the Reuters News Agency, reporting on the 1963 American expedition to Mount Everest and eventually became Reuters’ mountaineering correspondent. She’s been in Kathmandu ever since and through the decades has become the most respected, and sometimes feared, chronicler of Himalayan climbing. Hawley has interviewed the majority of climbers who’ve done ascents of Nepalese/Tibetan peaks since she arrived (she doesn’t bother with the western range, Pakistan/China). Parts historian, archivist, and librarian she is Authenticator Supreme and if you summited, and you want anyone to know about it, you’ll want her to know about it.
I was in Nepal last spring photographing two older Sherpas for my climbing book but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to drop by and pay her a visit. I photographed her in Kathmandu, in the same apartment she’s been living in for 57 years.
Photo © Jim Herrington