RH: You are the first American woman to reach the summits of six of the world’s 14 8,000- meter peaks (Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyu, Broad Peak, Shishapangma, and Gasherbrum II). It took Ed Viesturs 14 years to complete the cycle. Do you plan to continue to do more than one expedition per year?
CB: Well, my goal isn’t to climb all 8,000-meter peaks, all 14 8,000-meter peaks. For me, climbing is challenging my own self; and I don’t like checklists; I don’t like saying I climbed all the seven summits or I climbed all the 14 8,000-meter peaks. For me it’s picking a route and challenging myself. It might not be the highest peak and it might not be the hardest peak but it’s a good challenge for [me], and even though I love 8,000-meter peaks — I love it because you are gone for so long, you get to know everybody on your expedition, and I enjoy it and I still want to go out and do more — I don’t want that as my goal, because I think climbing means something else to me than that.

RH: You own Mountain Madness, the company that Scott Fisher founded. How is the business doing? In addition to your own expeditions, do you also guide clients?
CB: Yes, I do. First of all, Mountain Madness is doing great. We have been growing regularly for the last several years. When I first took it over in ‘97, the company was pretty much going out of business, so it’s been very hard. I’ve had a lot of personal and business challenges in my life, so it’s been overcoming those hurdles, and now the business — we have a great group of people here at Mountain Madness and with everybody working together, we are doing a great job. It’s not just me; it’s everyone [who] works there. Everybody puts their hundred percent into the business, and we love what we do, and it’s going really well.

RH: On your Gasherbrum II climb, you employed 200 Baltis to haul your equipment. Do you plan to try to do some of the other 8,000-meter peaks in alpine style, or any other mountains that require, or at least in the past have required, some kind of help — Baltis or Sherpas — and do you think that expedition climbing will eventually go out of style?
CB: Well, let’s go back. The Gasherbrum II expedition, we hired 225 Balti porters, but that was just to get to basecamp. And it’s pretty much, anybody that climbs that way, tries to get into these mountains, you have to hire help to carry all of your stuff in. On the mountain itself, we didn’t use any porters; it was just all of us. For most of the climbs that I have done, I’ve always carried my own stuff up and down, except for Cho Oyo and Lhotse. We had, like, maybe one Sherpa to help to carry a few loads; I prefer doing it myself. When I guide 8,000- meter peaks, we have Sherpa support. I’m not against having people help me. First of all, they’re working, they’re getting paid, it’s part of their income — they bring it back home to their families. It helps people to be successful. Not everybody wants to be the Ed Viesturs or the Doug Scotts. For them, it’s a personal challenge of summiting Everest, and if we can make it easier for them to reach their personal goal, I’m for it. Most people, when they go to Everest, they’re not getting sponsorship, but it’s a personal challenge; it’s like running a marathon.

RH: I guess that’s a kind of ticklish question for a person who owns a guiding service. I think that some of the individualistic mountaineers like Messner or Viesturs or Steve House would probably conclude that ultimately expedition-type of climbing would go out of business, but that would be a hard thing for you to say because, in a certain sense, you’re a part of that: you guide and in guiding you have larger groups, and sometimes you would certainly need help because some young person who is attempting to climb a high peak can’t do it what you can do, so he or she would need help carrying tents and food. ... So that turns out to be a leading question; I didn’t mean it to be. ...
CB: Everybody has their opinion and their style to climb a mountain, and I look at it as, nobody’s right or wrong; it’s their opinion. When you climb Everest, do you use oxygen, do you not use oxygen? It’s your personal choice. ... Of course, if somebody’s going to become sponsored, you don’t want the person being guided or you don’t want the person to use oxygen. You want to take the elite, the top one percent, and those people get sponsored. Most people these days that climb Everest are your normal Joe Blow; they work 80 hours a week and they’re going on vacation, and I’d much rather see them climbing Everest or climbing Rainier or climbing Baker than going on a cruise. ... I love it when people get outside; they get athletic; they’re not overweight; and they try to push their personal physical goals that way. …