Ulyana Horodyskyj GS won't let a few bruises keep her at sea level. Last October, the geology graduate student suffered a concussion from a bicycle accident on Brown Street. She was not wearing a helmet during the accident and was treated with nine staples in her head. A month later, she made a six-day climb of 19,340 feet to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
"The way to succeed in grad school and in climbing are the same," she said. "You have to set long-term goals and keep working harder week by week."
Horodyskyj handled her injury with the same mentality. Only briefly did she doubt her ability to climb Kilimanjaro. "I remember thinking, ‘Is my dream over?' " she said. "That was the first time I didn't think I could do something."
Losing precious time to train before her climb, Horodyskyj opted to go up and down the stairs in her apartment every day and regularly trained on the elliptical at the gym. "I just kept thinking, ‘I can do this,' " she said.
Horodyskyj said Mt. Kilimanjaro was her most difficult, yet rewarding, climb to date. Tackling a major mountain once every six months, Horodyskyj plans on climbing Mt. Rainier in Washington this summer. She plans on climbing Mt. Everest in about 10 years, on her way to conquering the rest of the "seven summits" — the highest peak on each continent.
"When I got to the top of the mountain, I was near tears when I saw the sign for the summit in the distance. I took out my Flip cam and recorded what I saw," Horodyskyj said.
The video takes its viewers through Horodyskyj's physically grueling climb through rainforest, moorland and alpine desert areas, until she and her companions finally reach the snow-covered grounds near the top of the mountain.
"Hello, Norton Middle School," Horodyskyj says on the video as she holds up a white flag signed by the 250 sixth-grade students at the Norton, Mass., school where Horodyskyj had spoken a few weeks earlier.
Horodyskyj met Peter Berard — whose daughter is a Norton Middle School sixth grader — a year ago on an ice-climbing trip. Berard, who was impressed by Horodyskyj's stories of her various climbing expeditions and geological work, brought some pictures from her trips to Nepal and Antarctica to his daughter's social studies and geography teacher, Barbara Nado.
Horodyskyj was invited to give a presentation on her experiences around the world, and prepared a slide show highlighting her excursions to Antarctica, Iceland and the base camp at Mt. Everest.
"She's one of the best speakers we've had," the teacher said. "She's able to get ideas in ways that are easy to understand for students. She relates well to all ages — she's just a natural speaker and very energetic."
Horodyskyj offered to take the school's flag, signed by the sixth grade class, with her on her journey, and returned to the school earlier this month to bring the flag back to the students and share details of her climb up Kilimanjaro.
"My daughter absolutely loved it. Most kids are used to reading about places in textbooks. But it means so much more when someone comes to them who has been there, and they can see actual pictures. It's more realistic to them," Berard said.
A third-year doctoral student studying the weathering of volcanic rocks in extreme environments, Horodyskyj first found her love of the outdoors during camping trips with her parents as a child.
Always interested in the sciences, Horodyskyj participated in the National Science Fair in high school and used scholarships and awards from her science projects to help pay for her undergraduate education at Rice University.
At Rice, Horodyskyj discovered her passion for geology when she took a class on Antarctic geology. Through department field trips as an undergrad, she not only found an academic discipline that interested her, but also discovered a community of other students that shared her passion.
"I learned that people who climb have a real camaraderie," she said.
Because of her interest in geology, she has also been able to develop a friendship with Emmy award-winning filmmaker and mountaineer David Breashears — one of the heroes of her youth.
Breashears is perhaps most recognized for a film that Horodyskyj saw when she was 12 years old, the 1998 IMAX film "Everest."
While Horodyskyj, who currently works for Breashears as a project assistant, admires him for his passion for mountain environments, his filmmaking and his founding of the Glacier Research Imaging Project, Horodyskyj sees his work ethic as his most admirable quality — something she hopes to emulate.
"He had to work hard for everything himself, and he isn't interested in wasting time. He still made it, and he made it big. His best advice to me is just ‘don't listen to naysayers,' " Horodyskyj said.
This refusal to take criticism to heart has given Horodyskyj her drive — her final stretch to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro was one difficult push from 15,000 to 19,000 feet. Climbing from midnight until 8 a.m., Horodyskyj and her partner were equipped with only a head lamp for light until sunrise.
"The sun rose and the mountainside was glowing. Most people will look at a picture of Mt. Kilimanjaro and see beauty, but when I look at a picture, I see the reality of the climb. I remember 50 mile-per-hour winds when I couldn't breathe. A loss of oxygen, the bitter cold, mosquitoes and insects — so cold it's like climbing with the flu," she said.
While she has only suffered a few minor injuries, Horodyskyj said she is aware of the dangers of such strenuous mountain climbs. Horodyskyj firmly believes that "mountain climbers are not adrenaline seekers or death seekers."
"We climb because climbing keeps us alive. I'm aware of the risks. Climbing is an affirmation of life. There is always something to strive for — there is always some physical mountain, some mental goal," she said.
To help her remember this, Horodyskyj brings with her on every climb a string of multi-colored flags, each containing messages from her friends and loved ones.
"Seeing the nice messages from friends makes coming down mandatory," she said. "It keeps me strong — a reason to come down. To come back and be safe."
