Скачать или смотреть After Reaching the Top of the World, She Returned to the Soil

Before setting off, she carefully applied lipstick. On a cliff edge at nearly 8,800 meters above sea level, she sat quietly in the biting wind for two hours, waiting for the first rays of sunlight to illuminate the top of the world. In 2017, Huang Chunyan successfully summited Mount Everest via the North Col route.

To prepare for Everest, she began high-altitude training in 2009, gradually building her body’s “muscle memory” for elevation on 5,000-, 6,000-, 7,000-, and 8,000-meter peaks. Yet, the very success that made her a public figure also brought her face to face with darker aspects of human nature—something she has been reluctant to speak about ever since.

She dissolved her company, returned to her hometown in Guizhou to farm the land, and even dug her own pond to raise koi carp. She wanted to regrow herself in a familiar place.

She has known the exhilaration of standing on the summit and the silence of hitting rock bottom. In May 2025, as the full-time youth team leader of an outdoor organization, she led two teenagers to the summit of Everest.

Standing at the intersection of mountains and humanity, she transforms personal extreme experiences into flames that nurture collective growth. She says: “If life is a vessel, then mountaineering is the force that expands it. And sharing that force is what keeps me from being afraid of this world.”