Interview - Adele Pennington: Even after Everest, there are still peaks to conquer

Adele Pennington was just three years old when she started to dream about snow-capped mountains.

"My mum bought me a pair of red wellies because it was snowing. As soon as I put them on, I built a snow mound and declared that I was on the top of Everest," says the 43-year-old. "I was just obsessed by hills and mountains and I still am."

Thirty-eight years later, Adele was standing on top of the real Everest announcing that she was "on top of the world". As if that wasn't enough, last year she became the first woman to reach the summit twice, this time leading an expedition of 13 other climbers.

"It was harder the second time," she says. "I don't know what it is about Everest but there is something so amazing about it. It isn't the most technical climb, but it is physically the toughest."

But it could all have been very different, as 10 years earlier Adele suffered a 30-metre fall which could have signaled more than just the end of her climbing career.

"I made a technical error and fell off the end of the rope," she says matter-of-factly. "I fell 30 metres free fall. You do think your time is up. I landed in a gap in the snow and ice on the glacier, known as a bergschrund."

Adele broke her back and pelvis and 15 different bones and was paralysed. A colleague jumped down to her but ended up also getting stuck. For a terrifying 17 hours, the pair were stuck in the freezing crevasse overnight.

"I thought I was dying a few times," she recalls. "In the morning my friend managed to climb out and get some help. But at one stage I was left on my own waiting for the helicopter which was very frightening."

Adele spent months in hospital unsure whether she would walk again. When she did manage to get out of the wheelchair, doctors told her she would walk with a limp and it was unlikely she would be able to climb again.

But this determined woman was having none of that and, with the help of friends and family, within a year she was back to normal. Rather than turning her back on the mountains which so nearly claimed her life, the accident strengthened her resolve.

"I did think about giving up climbing but I couldn't, it's part of my life that I had to continue. I live and breathe it. Something inspires you to go back to it. The accident actually spurred me on. I learned to walk again and then to climb again thanks to friends and family. It was a real team effort."

Adele, from Dronfield, has her stepfather to thank for her first taste of climbing. With him she climbed her first mountain, Snowdon, when she was six. Despite getting lost in the mist and taking a lengthy detour which resulted in her mum being furious, this first experience of climbing didn't put her off.

"I knew then that I had to climb," Adele says bluntly, although she didn't climb again properly until she was at university.

After studying Biochemistry in London, Adele did a PhD in York while working as a research fellow looking into causes and cures of leukaemia. Despite this important work, her heart was always far from the laboratory and while she was studying she decided to follow her passion.

"I decided to sell up – my house, my car, everything, to fund the trip. I suppose I thought it might get it out of my system, but not really. I just had to do it. The little voice in my head just wouldn't go away."

She travelled to New Zealand, Australia and much of Europe climbing some of the most challenging mountains on offer.

After returning to the UK, Adele decided to become a teacher, in Stockton-on-Tees.

"I really became a teacher because it meant that I could

go climbing in the school holidays."

Her accident happened during one of these climbing trips to the Alps. Although she returned to teaching for a couple of years, she knew that she had to become a full-time climber and she started to work for Sheffield-based adventure company, Jagged Globe, becoming one of the country's few full-time female expedition leaders.

Adele finds it hard to put into words what it is that draws her to climb some of the biggest and most dangerous mountains in the world, often with nothing more than a piece of rope and some trusted colleagues between her and certain death.

"It is the only thing that I have found that really fulfils me. I need to be challenged, I'm not the sort of person that can sit around. I never have been. I think the accident has made me a better leader, it has given me patience, especially when people are scared."

But climbing has not always been just about achieving her personal goals.

For five years, she worked as a training officer for Scarborough and District Search and Rescue Team, hunting for people lost on the North York Moors.

"I had been rescued myself and I wanted to give something back."

But her very first rescue turned out to be a very different type of call-out than walkers stranded on the Moors.

"My very first call-out was to the Lockerbie air disaster. We were involved in searching through the wreckage for people's belongings," she recalls.

"We knew roughly what had happened, that there had been a bomb. There was luggage, belongings and wreckage everywhere. It was very strange."

Although it was 20 years ago, Adele says the recent release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi brought back memories of those eerie searches. "I was angry when they decided to send him back. It didn't sit well with me at all. I had seen enough to feel very angry with the decision. The belongings we found belonged to actual people who had been killed in the bombing."

During her career with Jagged Globe, Adele has climbed three of the world's tallest mountains – Cho-Oyu, Everest and Manaslu – in just 12 months.

Despite being the first British woman to climb Manaslu, it is Everest which still holds her heart. "I still don't know what it is about Everest, it is just special. You are literally on top of the world."

Although she didn't know it Adele was the 20th British woman to reach the summit. She also didn't realise it when she became the first British woman to climb Everest twice. "Being the first isn't what it's about for me. It is about the climb. It is my job and I am lucky to do what I do."

Although Adele leads three or four expeditions a year and spends the winter in Scotland climbing, you get the feeling that she needs more.

"There are so many mountains that I still want to climb, but you need a lot of money, or a sponsor."