Drummond is the second person and first woman to climb the second-tallest peak on each continent. Drummond said she was inspired to attempt the feat after she was almost killed in a 2018 car crash.
“It actually woke me up to living and realized we have this beautiful planet that should be explored,” she said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” June 11.
Drummond said she was planning on climbing a mountain for her 40th birthday when her son challenged her to attempt a more difficult climb: Mount Everest. Drummond then hired a coach and set the goal to climb the second-tallest peaks on each continent.
Part of her pursuit was to earn a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
To do that, Drummond ended up climbing nine mountains. She said that’s because there’s a dispute on what is considered a continent and Guinness wants climbers to cover all options.
For example, she said Indonesia is often included as part of Asia, but some lump Indonesia in with Australia and call it Oceania. Depending on the definition, there are different peaks to climb.
“Then, because of the political things going on with Russia, they wanted me to climb mountains in Europe if we excluded Russia from Europe,” she said. “So I climbed Mount Rosa in May of 2024 and then I climbed the highest peak and the second highest peak in Indonesia in October of 2024.”
Drummond said when she filed with Guinness to earn the record for climbing the second-tallest peaks, she realized she only had three mountains left to complete each continent’s highest peaks: Mount McKinley, formerly known as Denali, in Alaska, Mount Elbrus in Russia and Mont Blanc in France.
Drummond recently returned from her attempt to summit Mount McKinley. She had to climb down before making it to the top due to a teammate getting sick and bad weather.
“One thing I did learn about Denali is that you really should give yourself as much time as possible, because weather storms come in, and they can come in for a few weeks, and then that will destroy your expedition,” she said.
On the way down McKinley, Drummond said she does “little summits” — small acts of kindness to support other climbers. On her way down the mountain, she gave a person with an injured foot the rest of her blister packs and she handed out her snacks to others who stayed.
“There was some other women that were trying to set records as the fastest known time to climb Denali. And so how can I support her? And what does she need? And you get to still be a part of other people's journeys,” she said.
Drummond said she will reattempt Mount McKinley another year in May or June. She’s signed up to climb Mont Blanc in April of 2026 and plans to ski part of it.
