Keeper Of The Mountains Trailer from Allison Otto on Vimeo.

In a post-World War II era during which few women traveled and lived independently, young journalist Elizabeth Hawley decided to settle alone in 1960 in Kathmandu. Carving out a niche for herself as the foremost Himalayan mountaineering historian in the world, Hawley, now 87, has chronicled roughly 80,000 ascents in the Himalaya, including those on Everest.

A legacy keeper with her own legacy, Hawley's reports and interviews are so respected and thorough that mountaineers have dubbed her interrogations an expedition's “second summit,” and they consider her archives to be crucial to providing insight into the history of mountaineering and for maintaining integrity and accuracy in the mountaineering world.

But now Miss Hawley and her records face an uncertain future: Miss Hawley is pondering retirement but hasn’t groomed a successor. Since the archives aren’t a revenue-generating venture, how they will be maintained—and by whom—remains in doubt.

This is the story of an independent woman and her archives, of a self-professed “city girl” who played a key role in the Golden Age of Himalayan Mountaineering, who shared deep friendships with everyone from Sir Edmund Hillary to Nepalese royalty, and who witnessed firsthand mountaineering’s transformation from a fringe pursuit to a big-business obsession and the impact it had upon Nepal.

Special thanks to:

Lisa Choegyal and Michael and Meg Leonard for use of the still photographs
AND
Serac Adventure Films for additional footage