In 2010 Katie Sarah stood on the summit of Mt Everest, less than three years after a doctor told her she wouldn’t hike again.
Despite breaking her ankle in a rock climbing accident in 2006 and later having the joint fused, she was determined to prove that prediction wrong.
And last year it was that same tenacity and grit that earned the Adelaide Hills mother-of-three a place on a small crew tackling the high seas on a 1984-built Baltic 55 yacht, called the Outlaw, during the retro Ocean Globe Race 2023.
Katie received the call from a friend mid-pandemic asking her to join his team on the race around the world without modern navigation technology, like GPS.
“My first response was ‘you do know I don’t know how to sail – I know nothing about sailing?’,” she says.
“… I just decided I couldn’t say no.”
After some training trips, including the 2021 Sydney to Hobart and a transatlantic journey, Katie and the Outlaw team crossed the start line in Southampton in the UK on September 5, 2023 and completed the race across four legs on April 18 this year, sometimes going more than 40 days at a time without seeing land.
“We did have relatively good conditions – it could have been a lot, lot worse – but we certainly had big seas and big winds,” Katie says.
“We had 50-plus knot winds and that sort of stuff, but all things considered we were fairly blessed.
“… There are a couple of really vivid moments – one was me on the helm and this 55 foot boat – I’m looking at the front of the boat and it is down there, because we are surfing down this big wave.”
Sleeping in shifts of three to five hours, the inability to exercise and lack of contact with the outside world – including her family – all took their toll during the 43,000km journey to the finish line.
But for Katie, a strong mindset and determination – the same skills she’s applied on the world’s highest peaks – were key to surviving.
“The mindset of it will come to an end,” she says.
“The really horrible, cold, huge winds, just really hard to get into bed and to get out of bed and to get dressed, just everything was really hard – physically difficult to do.
“But then you’d have the amazing sunsets and sunrises and the dolphins, all sorts of stuff – albatross – that was just beautiful, stunning and just amazing, so it was knowing that even the really horrible bits, they would come to an end.”
Summitting Everest and circumnavigating the globe are only two feats among a long list of some of the world’s greatest physical and mental challenges that Katie has tackled and conquered.
In 2018 she unwittingly became the first woman in the world to complete the Seven-Seven – summitting the highest mountain and highest volcano on each of the seven continents – and she’s one ski trip to the North Pole away from completing the Explorer’s Grand Slam – reaching the Seven Summits (the highest mountain on each continent) and the two poles.
They’re feats few will ever come near to achieving – and for Katie, achievements she didn’t really set out to complete.
Instead, her entry into the world of extreme adventuring began with triathlons.
“My husband used to be a really good runner … back in our early days of marriage he was taking off with triathlons and with the newly wed thing I was like ‘I can do that with him’,” she says.
“… So I sort of started some short triathlons, then had a few babies.
“… I did a fair bit of running in my 30s and early 40s, then sort of discovered the hiking.”
On a trip to the Flinders Ranges Katie found an interest in rock climbing and later had her first experience at altitude in 2006 when she climbed a 6500 metre peak in Bolivia in South America.
The next year she went on her first Everest expedition and reached 8450 metres – just 400 metres shy of the summit, despite a “severely compromised ankle” that had healed poorly after she broke it during a rock climbing accident at Morialta just months prior.
“(After Everest) I had that joint fused, with the surgeon saying ‘you’ll never hike again’,” she says.
Less than three years later, she went on her second expedition to Everest – and made it to the summit.
For Katie, standing on the top of the world’s highest mountain brought feelings of relief, disbelief and excitement.
The dangers of the expedition – from crevasses, extreme weather conditions and avalanches to the intensely physical demands of climbing at altitude – are not lost on her.
In fact she’s aware of two climbers on the mountain around the same time as she was who never made it down.
“Physiologically it’s a huge toll on your body,” she says.
“Your body’s pretty much just dying on a cellular level over 6000 metres and we would have spent three of four weeks above 6000 metres, so physiologically it’s not good for you.
“Altitude is something to be very careful with and respect.”
By 2013, Katie had climbed the Seven Summits and began looking for a new challenge.
… standing on the top of the world’s highest mountain brought feelings of relief, disbelief and excitement …
That’s when she decided to add the highest volcanoes on each continent to her list, unwittingly breaking a world record when she summited the final volcano – Mt Sidley in Antarctica – in 2018.
“After we’d done the peak, we were down in the camp in Antarctica … I think at that point only about 33 people were on record as having summited this volcano, because it’s so remote and so hard to get to and Antarctica’s just tricky.
“So I was looking at those names … and then I think there was a second list of who had done the Seven Summits and it narrowed it down to about eight people and I was like, ‘there’s no women on that list’.”
“It was just kind of like, ‘that’s kind of cool’.”
When she’s not chasing adventure around the world, Katie sits on multiple boards, including the SA chapter of Guide Dogs and artist support organisation Guildhouse, volunteers in the kitchen at Meals on Wheels and takes care of a menagerie of animals on her Adelaide Hills property.
But while she’s already achieved more than many adventurers could hope to in a lifetime, she’s not ready to hang up her climbing gear just yet.
She’s been trying to reach the North Pole – the last expedition she has to tick off in the Explorer’s Grand Slam – since 2019.
With a narrow window each year to make the trip and with several uncontrollable factors (including weather challenges and Covid) so far barring her attempts, it remains somewhat illusive. She hopes to return to the Northern Hemisphere for another attempt next year.
But if that doesn’t work out, she’s also got her eye on another peak in Nepal.
And for those who may have aspirations to follow in her footsteps, the petite, five-foot adventurer has this advice:
“You need to get out there and do stuff – really test yourself,” she says.
“Obviously I’m not a 6’7” big bloke, so for me it’s been doing the training – it’s more training than you think you might need … getting yourself as fit and strong as you possibly can without injuring yourself.”
“And just being open to know that there’s a lot you won’t know, but listening to the people that are experts.”
“… And a mindset – have a crack”.
