Experienced female climbers report sexual harassment

At a time when the outdoor recreation industry is addressing sexual abuse and harassment, reports of sexual abuse and harassment in elite climbing industry have emerged in the media.

The New York Times ran an article on 31st May written by Anna Callaghan and Jenny Vrentas titled For Female Climbers, Dangers Go Beyond Avalanches and Storms, with a subtitle that reads "Women are increasingly reporting sexual harassment and abuse in the sport including accusations against the renowned climber Nirmal Purja".

The outdoor recreation industry is currently addressing sexual abuse and harassment issues as more women in sport climbing - which includes everything from indoor rock climbing to ascending snowy peaks - are coming forward to talk about unsettling experiences or worse.

In interviews with The New York Times, Lotta Hintsa, a Finnish mountaineer and former Miss Finland and another woman, Dr April Leonardo, a family physician from the USA, shared their accounts of being sexually harassed by renowned climber and guide Nirmal Purja.

Purja, aged 40, is one of mountaineering’s most recognisable and influential figures, with more than two million followers on Instagram. Known as Nims, he’s a naturalised citizen of Britain, where he lives with his wife and young daughter. In his native Nepal he is revered as a climbing superstar and was the focus of the Netflix documentary 14 Peaks, in which he climbed the world’s 14 8,000-metre peaks in record time (a record that was broken last year).

In the article, Hintsa recounts an episode of sexual aggression during a reported business meeting at The Marriot in Kathmandu last year. Dr Leonardo, a client of Purja’s, allegedly suffered constant sexual harassment during a K2 expedition in 2022.

Hintsa said she was going public in hopes of making mountaineering, still a male-dominated sport, safer for women. Only with time, she said, has she come to understand the effects of her experience.

The New York Times reports that in response to the #MeToo movement, members of the United States climbing community created an initiative in 2018 called #SafeOutside to study the scope of the problem in the sport. More than 5,000 climbers from over 60 countries were surveyed by the organisers of the initiative who found that 47% of women and 16% of men said they had been subjected to unwanted sexual behaviour while climbing.

On the accusation of harassment, Purja responded through his lawyers, denying all accusations as “false and defamatory” with a statement noting that Purja “unequivocally denies the allegations of wrongdoing.”

The New York Times story impacts not only Purja personally, but also his brand - he owns a guiding company, Elite Exped, and a clothing brand. He also has his name on collections by Grivel and Nike and is one of a very select group of Red Bull athletes.

Jenny Vrentas, co-author of the The New York Times article, has seen her Instagram account flooded with responses including one post from Himalayan Hub which highlighted that no media in Kathmandu “dared” to report the story and no journalists in Nepal are keen to investigate.

In Australia last year, Stephen Mitchell, a former national rock climbing coach, was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison for sexual offences against six girls between 1994 and 2008.

The conviction also included charges of persistent abuse of a child and maintaining a sexual relationship with a child.

He met five of the girls through rock climbing, or his work with the Police Community Youth Club (PCYC) in Canberra, and met the other girl through a social activity.

At the time of sentencing, the ABC reported that four of Mitchell's victims were taking legal action against a number of institutions, including the Australian Institute of Sport, the Canberra PCYC, and the Australian Federal Police, as the body which then ran the ACT PCYC.

Mitchell will be eligible for parole in May 2032

Images: Finnish mountaineer Lotta Hintsa (top, credit: Lotta Hintsa instagram), Nirmal Purja and a statement release on his behalf (middle, credit: Nirmal Purja Instagram) and Stephen Mitchell (below, supplied),