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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Australian |
| Born | (1963-03-18)18 March 1963 St Ives, New South Wales |
| Died | 28 May 2006(2006-05-28) (aged 43) Manaslu |
| Climbing career | |
| Type of climber | Mountaineer |
| Major ascents | Mount Everest |
| Updated on 17 March 2013 | |
Susan Erica FearOAM (18 March 1963 – 28 May 2006) was an Australianmountaineer, supporter of theFred Hollows Foundation and a 2005 recipient of theOrder of Australia Medal. Her life and climbing career is illustrated in her biographyFear No Boundary: The Road to Everest and Beyond, written by fellow climberLincoln Hall and Fear, published in 2005.
Fear was born on 18 March 1963 inSt Ives,New South Wales, Australia, she was the middle child in her family, with two brothers Grahame and John.[1] Her parents were Ron and Joan Fear. Her mother Joan died frombreast cancer in May 1988, and her father Ron died unexpectedly of aheart attack in June 2002.[2]
Fear attended St Ives North Public School in her primary school years where she was theSchool Captain, and later attendedAbbotsleigh (Years 7–10) where she was the softball captain, andBarker College (Years 11–12) on Sydney's north where she was a school prefect and the captain of the girls' hockey and cricket teams. While at school she attained the Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award.[3] Sue was recently (2019) honoured when Barker College, extending their number of 'Houses' to cater for the influx of many more girls in Years 7-9, named one house after her (Fear House).
After leaving school after Year 12 in 1980 Fear took an office job with Wilderness Expeditions, an adventure travel company founded byTim Macartney-Snape. That company was later acquired by World Expeditions, and she moved out of the office and into the field. She became an adventure guide and led cross country ski trips in Australia as well as treks inAfrica,South America, andAsia. She was recognised as one of the company's senior guides, leading many physically challenging mountaineering expeditions.
Between 1995 and 2006, Fear climbed theSeven Summits and five of the fourteeneight-thousander peaks. Her firsteight-thousander wasCho Oyu (8,201 m) in 1998, followed byShishapangma (8,027 m) in 2002. In 2003, Fear climbedEverest (8,848 m) from the more difficult Tibetan side on theNorth Col. She was the first Australian-born woman and the second Australian woman overall to do so. She then successfully climbedGasherbrum II (8,034 m) in Pakistan the following year (2004). Her final climb wasManaslu (8,163 m) in 2006, which she successfully summited.
Fear died on 28 May 2006,[1] when she fell into a crevasse (approx. 7,400 m) while descending from the summit ofManaslu. Her body remains on the mountain, honouring an earlier request if she were to die while climbing a mountain.[4] A plaque now lies in the memory of her just above the town ofBandipur on a small hill facing Manaslu.[4]
Fear was awarded theOrder of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2005 for her work as Ambassador forThe Fred Hollows Foundation and for services to mountaineering, which will have an eye clinic named after her inDhading Besi, Nepal. Fear was also named the 2003 Adventurer of the Year by theAustralian Geographic Society. She was an ambassador for the Australian Himalayan Foundation and also helped raise funds for the Australian Nepalese Medical Group.
1995 –Kilimanjaro (5,895 m)
1995 –Elbrus (5,642 m)
1996 –Kosciuszko (2,228 m)
1996 –Mont Blanc (4,810 m)
1996 –Aconcagua (6,961 m)
1997 –Denali (6,194 m)
1998 –Cho Oyu (8,201 m)
1999 –Puncak Jaya (4,884 m)
2001 –Vinson Massif (4,892 m)
2002 –Shishapangma (8,027 m)
2003 –Mount Everest (8,848 m)
2004 –K2 (8,611 m)
2005 –Nanga Parbat (8,126 m)
2006 –Manaslu (8,586 m)
Fear's life and climbing career is written about in the biographical bookFear No Boundary: The Road to Everest and Beyond, written by fellow climber Lincoln Hall (with Sue Fear), and first published in Melbourne by Lothian Books in 2005.[2]