The Mountains Weren't Studied With Us in Mind — That's About to Change

A first-of-its-kind, all-women research expedition to the Himalaya is finally asking how women's bodies actually respond to high altitude. Here's why that matters to me — and to every woman who loves the mountains.

If you've followed Alpenshade for a while, you know our story starts in the Colorado high country. Before I was a mom running a sun-protection company, I was working my way through all 58 of Colorado's fourteeners — every peak in the state above 14,000 feet. Finishing that list meant years of backpacking trips and countless nights sleeping at 11,000-12,000 feet, watching alpenglow fade from a tent door and getting up before dawn to beat the afternoon storms.

Here's something I didn't fully appreciate during all those long days and nights at altitude: almost everything we "know" about how the human body acclimatizes — the guidelines for preventing altitude sickness, the advice about ascent rates and symptoms to watch for — is based predominantly on studies of men.

Women now make up roughly 40% of the mountaineering community. Yet relatively few high-altitude physiology studies have focused specifically on women. So when a woman asks her doctor how pregnancy, her menstrual cycle, or menopause might affect her at 12,000 feet, the honest answer is often: we don't really know.

Meet ISHARE

That's why I'm so excited to share a project I learned about recently when I met Dr. Linda Keyes, an emergency physician and high-altitude medicine researcher here in Colorado.

Dr. Keyes is a co-founder and expedition co-leader of the International Sisters High Altitude Research Expedition (ISHARE) — a women-led research initiative that has announced plans for a 2027 medical research expedition to Putha Hiunchuli (Dhaulagiri VII, 7,246 m) in Nepal.

What makes ISHARE remarkable isn't just where they're going — it's who's going, and why. Every member of the scientific team, guiding team, and expedition staff will be a woman: physician-scientists, Nepalese researchers, climbers, and mountain guides. That makes ISHARE the first known all-women's medical research expedition in the Himalaya.

Along the way, the team will collect physiological measurements to tackle questions that have gone unanswered for far too long:

• How do women acclimatize across the lifespan? The study will compare physiological responses in pre- and post-menopausal women during ascent.
• What happens at altitude during and after menopause? Older women are participating in mountain sports in growing numbers, yet there are almost no prospective field studies on menopause at high altitude.
• What can we learn about altitude adaptation? Comparisons between women of Sherpa and non-Sherpa ancestry will help researchers better understand how the body adapts to chronic low oxygen.

The science is serious — the expedition's advisory group includes internationally recognized leaders in hypoxia research and mountain medicine, among them Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Ratcliffe and renowned altitude-medicine experts Dr. Peter Hackett and Dr. Buddha Basnyat. And the findings could reach well beyond mountaineering: understanding how women respond to low oxygen has potential relevance for critical care, cardiovascular disease, and even aviation and aerospace medicine.

As Dr. Keyes puts it: "Women have become an increasingly important part of the mountaineering community, yet our understanding of how women respond to high altitude has not kept pace... We hope ISHARE serves not only as an expedition, but as the foundation for a new generation of collaborative research on women's physiology in extreme environments."

Why This Matters to Us at Alpenshade

Alpenshade exists because of a gap — I couldn't find sun protection that truly worked for babies and families living an outdoor life at altitude, where UV exposure is dramatically more intense. ISHARE exists because of a gap, too: the evidence base for women's health in the mountains simply hasn't kept up with the women who are out there climbing.

Both come down to the same belief: women and families don't just belong in the outdoors — they deserve science and gear that were actually designed for them.

I also love that ISHARE is building something bigger than one climb. The project partners closely with Nepalese investigators and creates research, leadership, and mentorship opportunities for women in mountain medicine and expedition science. Little girls watching this expedition — including the ones toddling around trailheads in sun hats — will grow up in a world where an all-women's scientific team on a 7,000-meter peak isn't a first. It's normal.

How You Can Support ISHARE

The expedition is scheduled for September 2027, and the team welcomes research collaborators, institutional partners, sponsors, and anyone who wants to follow along:

• Learn more and donate at isharemountains.org
• Follow the journey — ISHARE is on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn
• Reach out to the team at isharemountains@gmail.com if you're interested in partnering or supporting the research

I'll be cheering them on from Colorado — and I hope you will be, too.

See you up high, Jenna

 

Written by Jenna Peart, MD

Board Certified Dermatologist