She scaled Everest, K2 and Annapurna, and escaped avalanches: 'I feel alive in the mountains'

CNA

2 days ago

The highest point on earth, Mount Everest has long been a symbol for the triumph of the human spirit. Many climbers spend years training for it, and six to nine weeks climbing it, including the trek to base camp and the time required to acclimatise to the altitude.
This is because the final summit push from base camp at 5,364m to the peak at 8,848m covers close to 3,500m. And anything above 8,000m is known as the Death Zone – oxygen levels drop to 33 per cent of that at sea level and temperatures dip to -40°C.
Against howling winds, mountaineers cross a narrow ledge, a knife-edge ridge, and a vertical rock wall with spiked boot attachments, ice axes and fixed ropes.
Experienced climbers take four to seven days for this final summit push. After extensive training, one young Singaporean woman did it in 36 hours, in 2023. The mountaineer is 33-year-old Vincere Zeng.
GETTING TO THE EVEREST SUMMIT IN 36 HOURS
In the mountaineering world, making a straight push to the summit is known as a speed ascent. Zeng had prepared relentlessly for it, focusing on endurance training such as running, trail running and climbing stairs, as well as technical training such as rock climbing.
But one thing Zeng did not anticipate was being stricken by bouts of illness during her climb.
On the trek up to Everest base camp, Zeng caught influenza. Then, at base camp, two weeks before the summit push, she caught COVID-19. She still had a sore throat and a slight lingering cough when it came time to summit.
'At 5,300m, your body can never recover from any illness. Any respiratory or any lung related sickness is very dangerous because high altitude sickness also affects the lungs,' she said.
However, Zeng could not wait any longer – the small window when weather conditions were suitable to summit was fast closing.
'Every night, I would ask myself if I should do this? Finally, I asked myself if I would regret it if I never tried. The answer was 'yes'. So I decided to try,' she told CNA Women.
Her training paid off. Zeng made a remarkably rapid ascent.
She was forced to pause for several hours because of diarrhoea from something she had eaten. Then, she continued to push forward, reaching the Everest peak in pitch darkness at 3.30am on May 18, 2023. Her summit time: 36 hours.
Zeng did not linger to bask in her triumph. 'On the mountain, when you say 'summit', it is not about going to the summit. It is about getting home. In high altitude climbs, 70 per cent of the deaths or more happen during the descent.
'You are very motivated when you are going up. But a lot of times, once you summit, suddenly all the energy is gone and it's very easy to make mistakes. Descending is actually the more critical part of the climb,' Zeng noted.
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Just below the summit, one of Zeng's contact lenses blew away in the savage winds. Severely shortsighted at 800 degrees, she had to hold on to her sherpa to descend the world's highest mountain in half-blindness.
She made it down, and undeterred, moved on to scale Lhotse, the world's fourth highest peak, the very next day, a feat that many elite mountaineers aspire to because this 8,516m mountain is connected to Everest at 7,906m altitude.
On May 19, 2023, Zeng became the first Southeast Asian woman to summit both Everest and Lhotse back-to-back during the same expedition
AN ACCIDENTAL MOUNTAINEER
Zeng never set out to be a mountaineer. The young woman, who is currently a strategy and transformation program manager at a software company, climbed her first mountain, 5,895m-high Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, as part of her graduation trip in 2015.
She surprised herself by how well she did. 'My African guide said I was even faster than some of the porters,' she laughed, adding that she had never excelled in sports before.
'I like the way I pushed myself and achieved something. It sparked something in my heart,' she said.
Two years later, in 2017, she scaled the 6,476m high Mera Peak in Nepal without training and also completed the climb faster than most.
Spurred on by her success, that same year, she attempted the 6,961m-high Aconcagua in Argentina. Unfortunately, this time, her summit day coincided with her menstrual cycle and she felt weak. 'My body just gave up. I just could not move my legs anymore and had to turn back,' she said.
It was in failure that Zeng found her fire. She set her heart on the 7,134m Lenin Peak, on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
For the first time ever, she threw herself into training. She hiked, did rock-climbing, and began trail running in forests and hills in Bukit Timah, MacRitchie Reservoir, as well as parts of Malaysia and Indonesia. In August 2018, she ascended Lenin Peak smoothly.
Aiming to summit Mount Everest in 2020, Zeng doubled down on training. Unfortunately, COVID-19 disrupted her plans.
When travel restrictions were lifted in 2021, she climbed 8,163m Mount Manaslu in Nepal instead, attempting a speed ascent of the eighth-highest mountain in the world for the first time.
Climbers typically engage sherpas to carry heavy equipment and fix ropes during these climbs. However, when Zeng propose a speed ascent, the sherpa company dismissed her request, doubting her abilities.
'I had to leverage a male friend to speak to the manager and make it happen,' she said.
And Zeng did indeed make it happen. The young woman ascended from base camp at 4,800m to the foresummit around 8,160m in 23 hours; most climbers take four to seven days.
To complement her mountaineering, Zeng also took part in trail-running races, especially in mountainous terrain. In 2022, she topped the women's category at the 100km Cameron Ultra Race in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.
Her success gave her the confidence to resurrect her Everest-Lhotse plans in 2023.
CLIMBING THE WORLD'S DEADLIEST MOUNTAINS
Zeng's mountaineering journey did not stop at Everest and Lhotse. In July 2023, Zeng climbed a far deadlier mountain – K2 in Pakistan.
At 8,611m, the mountain is notorious for its steep terrain – requiring rock and ice climbing – as well as unpredictable weather. Prior to 2021, approximately one in four climbers who summitted K2 died.
One of the hardest parts of the climb is known as the Bottleneck – a steep 70-to-80-degree vertical climb of ice and snow. This is followed by a narrow icy traverse (a ledge) that climbers edge sideways across, underneath massive ice towers that could collapse at any moment without warning.
When Zeng reached this traverse, a Pakistani porter had just fallen and dangled upside down on the fixed rope, suspending thousands of metres above a glacier. In falling, he had dislodged the anchors of the fixed ropes which secured other climbers.
For two to three hours that night, Zeng balanced precariously on the narrow traverse while sherpas attempted the rescue. The porter did not make it.
'I was quite scared. It was dark and when you looked down, you could not see the bottom. But because there were many climbers behind me, I could not turn back,' she recounted. 'It's an avalanche area. Luckily, the avalanche hit the other side, not ours.'
After summitting K2, came Annapurna in Nepal this year. This deadly mountain is known for its ice walls, avalanches and treacherous storms. Historically, about one in three climbers who summitted died, though the fatality rate has improved significantly in recent years.
Because of unpredictable weather, there was only one day for the summit push this year, and it came earlier than previous years. Without time to properly acclimatise, Zeng had to push through symptoms such as headaches while summiting.
'There is a section we need to pass that has constant avalanche – multiple times a day. The day I summited, two sherpas died at that place,' Zeng added.
On April 7, 2025, Zeng summited Annapurna – becoming the first Singaporean to do so.
"I FEEL ALIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS"
Zeng has since climbed six 8,000m-high mountains – Annapurna, K2, Everest, Lhotse, Manaslu, as well as Makalu in Nepal in May. She hopes to continue to add more peaks to her list and put the Little Red Dot on the mountaineering map.
She usually takes a month off work each year for her climbs.
Born in Szechuan, China, and growing up in a single parent family – her parents divorced when she was a baby – Zeng earned a scholarship to study in Singapore at the age of 17, and became a Singapore citizen in 2021, when she was 29.
Though frequently underestimated as the 'young little Asian girl' – she's 1.62m –Zeng said that the spirit of pushing limits and seeking out new challenges shaped her life, and she hopes to inspire others to do the same, whether in mountaineering or other fields.
Mountaineering, she added, is not as dangerous as some may think. As the sport becomes more commercialised, the fatality rate for most mountains has fallen sharply over the years.
Proper training and planning significantly mitigate the risks, Zeng added. For instance, the fatality rate for Everest has dropped to around one per cent in recent decades because of improved safety measures and weather forecasting.
That said, mountains like K2 and Annapurna remain perilous even for well-prepared elite climbers. Zeng continues to brave these mountains because it is where she feels most alive.
'I'd rather die somewhere I love than on a hospital bed,' she reflected.
But when people say Zeng conquered a mountain, she is quick to correct them.
'Please do not use the word 'conquer',' she said. 'In the mountains, there are so many things that you can't control. I think it's more like you are accepted by the mountain, and you are just part of it.
' When you are on an 8,000m mountain, it is massive whiteness; a feeling of infinity. You're just a tiny little dot. You let go of all your ego,' she said.