First Woman (UK) to reach the summit of Everest
September 2014, Harting Down, West Sussex
b.1961, Kent
Originally a journalist, Stephens became the first British woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest at the age of 31, in 1993. Everest is 8848 metres high with temperatures that can drop to -80F. Nearly 300 people have died in an attempt to climb it since the first successful ascent to the summit was made by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953. Stephens is also the first British woman to have climbed the Seven Summits, the highest mountain on each of the seven continents.