Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure

The plan was outrageous: A small team of four climbers would attempt a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest, considered the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain, which had only been successfully climbed once before. Unlike the first large team, Mimi Zieman and her team would climb without using supplemental oxygen or porter support. While the unpredictable weather and high altitude of 29,035 feet make climbing Everest perilous in any condition, attempting a new route, with no idea of what obstacles lay ahead, was especially audacious. Team members were expected to push themselves to their limits and to find a way to tackle the improbable. Zieman would accompany the climbers as the “doctor”—and the only woman—although she was only in her third year of medical school. On Everest, when three of their climbers disappeared during their summit attempt, Zieman reached the knife edge of her limits and dug deeply to call upon a well of resilience and courage.

Tap Dancing on Everest recounts Mimi Zieman’s unlikely journey from an upbringing in an Orthodox Jewish community in 1970s New York City as the daughter of immigrants, to an audacious and historic Everest expedition in 1988.