Lydia Bradey

Lydia Pounamu Bradey (born 9 October 1961) is a New Zealand mountaineer. She became the first woman to summit Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen in 1988. She has climbed Mount Everest a total of six times.

Early life Lydia Bradey was born to Royce and John Bradey in Christchurch, New Zealand. Her father was absent for most of her childhood, and she and her mother struggled financially. Bradey took up mountain climbing as a teenager; she went on her first wilderness expedition at the age of 14, and by 17 she had climbed to the summits of Mount Cook and Mount Aspiring. During this time she regularly climbed with her friend Rob Hall, and later met his friend Gary Ball. This ascent, like the previous year on Gasherbrum II, broke rules agreed with the Nepalese. Bradey did not have a permit for the route she climbed, and to avoid being banned from the mountain, her teammates Rob Hall and Gary Ball said she had not reached the summit. When the Nepalese government threatened Bradey with a 10-year climbing ban, she too retracted her claim of a successful ascent, only to reassert her claim to the summit later. Since then she has worked as an alpine guide based in Wānaka. Bradey made her second summit climb of Mount Everest in May 2008, twenty years after her first ascent. She climbed as a guide for a group of clients under the outfitter Adventure Consultants (AC).

Personal life Bradey lives in Lake Hāwea, Otago with her partner Dean Staples. Bradey was the subject of a biography, Lydia Bradey: Going Up is Easy, by Laurence Fearnley.