|
Previous News
Heart of the matter
Years after receiving a
heart transplant, Kelly Perkins sets her sights on El Capitan.
By Marek Warszawski /
The Fresno Bee
(Updated Wednesday,
August 24, 2005, 9:04 AM)
A love of mountain
climbing has always flowed through Kelly Perkins' veins.
Even a heart transplant
couldn't change that.
Ten years following
surgery to replace her faulty ticker with a healthy one, Perkins'
mountaineering career hasn't skipped a beat.
It just keeps getting
bolder.
Joined by her husband
and climbing partner, Craig, she has ascended some of the world's
best-known peaks, including Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Japan's Mt. Fuji
and the Matterhorn in Switzerland.
Their mission on each
mountain — besides reaching the summit — was to raise awareness for organ
donation. Perkins' climbing feats have brought worldwide attention.
Now the Laguna Niguel
couple have turned their attention to El Capitan, the hulking granite
monolith that towers over Yosemite Valley and attracts climbers from
around the globe.
Accompanied by two
guides from the Yosemite Mountaineering School, Kelly and Craig will
embark on a five-day, 2,900-foot climb Sept.5 that will be the greatest
big-wall challenge of their lives.
Of the more than 100
established routes on El Cap, the one they've chosen goes through a
natural formation on the southwest face — clearly visible from the valley
floor — called the "Heart."
"Visually, we thought
it would be so symbolic for me as a transplant recipient to climb through
it," Kelly Perkins said. "It's meant to be."
Perkins' original heart
started failing in September 1992 shortly after the couple returned from a
backpacking trip to Europe. Somehow, she had contracted a virus that
caused her resting heart rate to accelerate to 190 beats per minute.
After 3 1/2 years
living in and out of hospitals, Perkins underwent a heart transplant
operation at UCLA on Nov. 20, 1995. Ten months later, Kelly and Craig
hiked to the top of Yosemite's Half Dome, and their unlikely
mountaineering careers catapulted from there.
Even with her new
heart, Perkins, 43, faces challenges other mountaineers don't.
Transplanted hearts no longer have nerve connections to the brain, which
means Perkins' heart doesn't know when her muscles require more oxygen. As
a result, her heart doesn't receive the signal to beat faster until it
receives a jolt of adrenaline from lactic acid buildup in her muscles.
"I look strong for my
size and I do things that represent a strong person," Perkins said. "But
when I go for a walk and hit just a short uphill or flight of stairs, and
I won't be able to talk when I'm walking. I'm fully out of breath."
|
 |
|
The naturally formed
'Heart' of El Capitan will be one of the sites Craig and Kelly Perkins
climb through on their five-day trek of the mountain. |
|
Photo: Tomas Ovalle / The
Fresno Bee |
If Perkins gets out of
breath climbing stairs, imagine how difficult it must be to climb
mountains. But she gets through it.
Few heart transplant
patients exert themselves to the level Perkins does, said Dr. Jignesh
Patel of the UCLA heart transplant clinic.
"It's a lot harder for
her heart to work with her body than a normal person," Patel said. "Kelly
has been able to train herself to a level where her heart is working well,
which is remarkable."
For any big-wall
climber, El Capitan is no easy feat.
Yosemite guide Scott
Stowe, who trained with the couple on Washington Column and Royal Arches,
expects to bring more than 400pounds of gear up the wall, including
40gallons of water.
Stowe and fellow guide
Ken Yager, who have climbed El Capitan more than 110times between them,
will do all the lead climbing on the route. Kelly and Craig will follow on
mechanical rope ascenders called jumars.
A jumar employs a cam
that allows the device to slide freely in one direction but tightly grip
the rope when pulled on in the opposite direction. Hand over hand, she'll
literally pull her way up the wall.
At times, Perkins will
be able to brace her feet on the sheer granite. But on overhanging
sections, she'll be dangling from a rope suspended thousands of feet above
the ground.
"You don't want to
spend a lot of time looking down," she said. "Hopefully my focus will be
in front of or above me."
During the five days
Perkins and her team will be on El Capitan, there will be multiple
opportunities for people in Yosemite and the central San Joaquin Valley to
donate blood and sign up for California's new organ and tissue donor
registry.
All donors will receive
a commemorative T-shirt marking Kelly's climb.
"Everything I've done
to date has been about awareness," she said. "Well, we're tired of
awareness. We want participation."
Click here
for an article on climb in Mt. Aspiring National Park - New Zealand |
