Two brave Greek female mountain climbers have planted Greece's flag on top of the seventh highest mountain peak in the world.
Christina Flambouri and team mate Vanessa Archontidou managed to plant the Greek flag at the top of Mount Denali on July 4, the highest peak in Alaska and all North America and the seventh-highest in the world.
To conquer mountains you don't need strength but "soul" according to Flambouri, who along with her team mate had to overcome very low temperatures and technical challenges that make Denali one of the hardest mountains in the world to climb.
Christina Flambouri is a member of the Greek Mountaineering Club of Acharnes and Vanessa Archontidou is a member of the Athens Mountaineering Club. Both women took part in a mission organised by the Hellenic Federation of Mountaineering and Climbing with two Greek men, Fotis Goudas and Giorgos Marinos.
In an interview with Greek news agency ANA, 29-year-old Christina Flambouri said her greatest weapons were her love of mountains but also her determination to overcome an abiding fear of heights.
"However bizarre it might sound, everything began because I was afraid of heights and with an effort to do rock-climbing where I had done very badly. Then I decided not to give up. For the last three years I have been involved in mountaineering, though not professionally. I am a private-sector employee and I am currently studying for my second degree, in business management. It takes persistence, to love what you do, to work and have the discipline needed for the preparation. And, of course, to make sacrifices and save to collect the money needed," she said.
In order to scale Denali, Christina also had to overcome a serious injury that she sustained a few months prior to her trip but she emphasised that dogged determination was the most important quality.
"In an assessment of the seven highest peak on each continent, Denali is in the same difficulty class as Everest. It is the highest mountain in N. America. It is not the 6,200 metres altitude that make things hard for climbers but the technical difficulties. The climber must carry his or her personal and team equipment. We carried more than 40 kilos and I am only 55 kilos. Therefore, I consider this the first obstacle that deters women from going or causes them to fail and give up from the start," she said.
She described harrowing moments, including the injury of team-mates in falls that luckily were not too serious, and said the experience had left her with a "bittersweet" sense of accomplishment on her own account but also disappointment that so few women were following her lead.
"Due to the crisis, some stop daring but we must chase after our dreams," she said, revealing that her own dream is to finally scale all seven of the highest peaks in the world: "So far I have done four - Elbrus the highest mountain in the Caucasus and the highest point in Europe, Kilimajaro in Africa, the Andes in Argentina and Denali in North America."
That left Everest, Vinson in Antarctica and Mount Wilhelm in Papua New Guinea but those trips would require "a great deal of money," she added.
