Courtesy of Oksana Litynska
Oksana Litynska on Mount Vinson in Antarctica, her final peak in the Seven Summits challenge.
KYIV – Lviv-born Oksana Litynska accomplished one of the most advanced climbers’ feats – she climbed the highest peaks on each of the seven continents. The last one on her list was Mount Vinson (4,892 meters) in Antarctica, which she successfully ascended on December 28, 2019.
In May, she reached the world’s highest point, Mount Everest (8,848 meters), and became the third Ukrainian woman to do so. Now she is a part of an exclusive club of around 70 women in history who achieved the Seven Summits program.
Climbing to the summit of the highest mountains of each of the seven continents is regarded as a major mountaineering challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985, by Richard Bass. Completing the Seven Summits and additionally reaching the North and South Poles has been called the Explorers Grand Slam.
The first Ukrainian woman who climbed the Seven Summits was Tetiana Yalovchak, who also had chosen to complete the challenge by ascending Vinson’s summit two years before Ms. Litynska – on December 17, 2017.
For Ms. Litynska, it all started back in 2013, when she ascended the summit of South America’s highest mountain, Aconcagua (6,961 meters). The first step in this exciting journey was made on New Year’s Eve of that year, when Ms. Litynska and her husband, Denys Ougrin, reached the peak. At the time, they didn’t yet have the ambition of getting to the highest point of each continent. “Somewhere at the age of 35, my husband and I were thinking we would soon be 40 years old. And while we were still in good physical strength, something had to be done that we could remember during the long winter evenings by the fireplace,” Ms. Litynska said of their decision to start mountaineering on a more advanced level.
“At first, we thought that we would get on Aconcagua and switch to something else. And when we did it, we felt it would be nice to try another mountain, and climbed Elbrus [5,642 meters]. And at the point when we climbed at Denali [6,194 meters], we thought that it is possible to execute the program ‘six peaks’ – without Everest, because it seemed too tall and unattainable,” she recalled. “But after the ascent of Denali, many Western companies that drive people to Everest started calling us, and we thought we might succeed. The fact is that Western European companies are trying to take to Everest only trained climbers who, in their opinion, will be able to climb to the top and get down from it successfully. Actually, my husband and I were only discussing the possibility at home when he posted on Facebook that we were going to Everest. So there was no going back.”
Ms. Litynska considers climbing a hobby that consumes all of her free time.
“The main job is still my profession. Especially because alpine climbing is a costly pleasure; funds still need to be earned,” explained Ms. Litynska, who has lived in London for more than two decades. “I am a chief financial officer at Africa’s largest bank, Standard Bank. I am responsible for its investment offices in London, New York, Dubai, São Paulo and Beijing. I have been at the bank for 12 years and went from the control of credit derivatives to working with liquidity and capital. Now I’m the chief financial officer.”
It’s not easy to combine professional life with completing this mountaineering challenge. Preparations for the journeys take all her free time when Ms. Litynska is in London, and the expeditions themselves can last up to two months, as the Everest climb did. “I am lucky – my company is not opposed to my travels. But, as a responsible manager, I have to choose when to go – at that time, there should be no essential meetings or reports, no strategic changes, etc. It is incredible how my team cared about my safety during these ascents. Sometimes they followed the satellite tracker at night and checked whether I had climbed or gotten down safely. I am very proud of the team I created.”
Courtesy of Oksana Litynska
Oksana Litynska in a Plast uniform.
Despite her professional success and such a time-consuming hobby, Ms. Litynska is still active in the Ukrainian community in the United Kingdom. She has been a member of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization since her childhood in Lviv. In Plast, she led a scout group and organized many scout camps. She made an impact in developing Plast branches both in Lviv and in London.
This commitment is no surprise, considering that Ms. Litynska had met her future husband in Plast back in the 1990s. During those years, they participated in many camps and journeys together. “My love for the mountains was instilled in me by Plast when I was a young girl living in Lviv. We went to the mountains a lot. The mountains – our Carpathians – were not that high. But it probably all began from those journeys.”
When Ms. Litynska began her trek to Mount Everest, the Seven Summit program was a goal for both her and her husband. Dr. Ougrin, a Lviv native, is a child psychiatrist at South London and a senior lecturer at Kings College London. They started the Everest ascent together, but Dr. Ougrin was forced to stop along the way because of health issues.
Ms. Litynska is not the first strong and successful woman in her family. She says her grandmother seems to be getting younger and younger since she turned 100. Her mother, Marta Litynska, is a world-famous chess player and holds the title of Woman Grandmaster. Born Marta Shul, she was the USSR women’s champion in 1972, and a runner-up three times. She also won the Ukrainian women’s championship in 1967, 1977 and 1995. At the peak of her chess career, Marta Litynska was ranked fourth in the world’s chess rating.
Today Oksana Litynska is already in the exclusive club of some 500 people who have climbed the Seven Summits. But among the alpinism community, there is a discussion about which peak should be considered the Australian continent’s highest mountain. Two lists designate two different mountains. Ms. Litynska reached Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 meters) in mainland Australia. However, another group of alpinists considers Indonesia’s Puncak Jaya, or Carstensz Pyramid (4,884 meters), the highest peak of Australia and Oceania, and include it in their variation of the Seven Summits list.
It’s likely that the Indonesian mountain will be Ms. Litynska’s next goal. If she climbs Carstensz Pyramid, she will join an even more exclusive community of people who have completed both Seven Summit lists. Today there are fewer than 150 individuals who have achieved that feat.
“It’s about overcoming yourself, because those mountains have been standing for millions of years, and it’s not about conquering a mountain,” Ms. Litynska summed up. “We conquer ourselves, sort out our fears, sort out our distrust of ourselves, our capabilities. That’s the reason why I love mountains.”