Woman trying to prove ‘vegans can do anything’ among three dead, 30 sick on Mount EverestTravis M. Andrews, Washington Post | May 24, 2016 10:56 AM ET
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8,848.
That’s how many metres in the air the peak of Mount Everest towers over Nepal, and the world, in its gleaming white brilliance. Since the British first billed it as the highest point on Earth in 1856, that snow-capped tip, where almost no life can survive without mechanical assistance due to oxygen levels that are one-third those at sea level, sings a Siren’s song to some high achievers. ...
For Maria Strydom and her husband Robert Gropel, climbing Everest while adhering to a strict vegan diet was their “own personal Everest.”
The 34-year-old Strydom, a lecturer at Monash Business School in Melbourne, had a message she wanted to share with the world: Veganism is not a handicap.
She and her husband Robert Gropel, a Melbourne veterinarian with Ivanhoe East Veterinary Hospital, both stuck closely to the rigorous diet required by vegans — no animal products whatsoever, which extends from scrambled eggs to most chocolate chip cookies — for which they experienced criticism. Some believed they didn’t receive enough iron and protein in their diet for such strenuous physical activity. ...
Everest, though, proved unscalable for them. The couple reached Camp Four, the final camp 400 meters from the summit before both suffered from high-altitude pulmonary edema, colloquially known as altitude sickness. It caused fluid to build up in Strydom’s brain, which killed her on Saturday. Gropel, alive but fighting a fluid build-up in his lungs, had to be taken down the mountain by sled, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. He was taken to a hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal. ...
