January 26th, 2018
Liz Hawley and Her Trusty VW (Eric Simonson)
I met Liz in 1979 on my first Himalayan Expedition and she wanted to know everything about what happened.  Since then, I met her dozens and dozens of times in Kathmandu, as I traveled back and forth to Nepal over the years with our climbing teams. Ever the journalist, Liz was all business in terms of recording expedition details. When that was done, though, we appreciated that she would open up a bit and allow some talk of the other mountaineering issues of the day. I was always relieved to know that somebody was paying attention to what climbers were doing, and claiming to be doing. Facts matter, and Liz was all about the facts. Nowadays when everyone is their own reporter and they can tell any story they want on the internet, it’s good to know that the legacy of truthful reporting that Liz put in place continues. Best wishes to Billi Bierling, Richard Salisbury, Jeevan Shrestha, and Rodolphe Popier for all the great work they have done bringing Liz’s Himalayan Database to the world.  From the old days of paper forms and tables completed in pencil, the Himalayan Database now accessible online. It was her life’s work and she lived to see it come full circle. We’ll miss her.
Eric Simonson