‘We all have mountains to climb’: How Lucy Westlake became the youngest female in U.S. history to climb all 50 state highpoints
NAPERVILLE, Ill. (BVM) — In 2017, Lucy Westlake first attempted to climb Denali — the tallest mountain in the United States — but her trip came to an abrupt halt.
However, four years later, she got to redeem herself.
On June 4, the 17-year-old began the trek up Denali along with her father, Rodney Westlake. She completed the journey on Father’s Day, June 20, officially becoming the youngest female in U.S. history to reach all 50 state highpoints.
Lucy’s proud of her accomplishments, but she doesn’t climb to set records or make a name for herself. She climbs because of her love for the outdoors, a passion she’s had since she was 6 years old when she climbed up La Malinche, Mexico’s fourth-highest point.
After spending a year living in Mexico, as her parents wanted to introduce her to her Mexican heritage, Lucy and her family moved back to Louisville, Ky., where she had lived for three years prior. In 2011, Lucy climbed Black Mountain, Kentucky’s highest point. She then made the 1,235-foot trek up Charles Mound, Illinois’ highest point, and soon after began her quest of reaching all 50 state highpoints.
“You just get to see so many different parts of the country, and you really get an appreciation for how huge and how diverse and how beautiful this country is,” Lucy said. “The Midwest has a beauty of its own, but it’s not as magnificent and grand as Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, those mountains.”
By July 2016, Lucy had climbed the highest mountain in every state, except Alaska. Shortly after, she discovered her climbing had a purpose beyond her own leisure.
While still living in Louisville, Lucy and her family’s church was heavily involved with WaterStep, a non-profit organization that works to provide sanitary drinking water to communities all over the world. Because of her involvement, Lucy’s parents worked with representatives from the organization to arrange a trip for her to Uganda in January 2017 to help install water filters in communities that lacked access to clean drinking water.
“It was so eye-opening to me,” Lucy said. “The kids were scared of me and my family because they’d never seen white people before in their village. It was crazy that people were living without access to safe water, but I absolutely loved it over there. The people were so welcoming and everything.”
Coincidentally, the trip was perfect for Lucy because it gave her an opportunity to make the 19,341-foot climb up Mount Kilimanjaro and prove that she was capable of making the journey up Denali. The guide services her family planned to hire in Denali would only agree to the commitment if they knew she could handle high altitudes.
“Kilimanjaro was a great mountain,” Lucy said. “It’s a pretty easy mountain, but it’s very high. That’s the challenge of it, is altitude. It was perfect for me to kind of test and see how my body handled altitude.”
Successfully completing Mount Kilimanjaro, Lucy first attempted Denali in the summer of 2017 — a 20,310-foot climb. However, she and Rodney were forced to end their trip at around 14,000 feet due to poor weather and visibility. Simultaneously, her guides were called on to rescue climbers who were stuck at the mountain’s peak in whiteout conditions.
Was Lucy disappointed? Of course, but she was also feeling beaten down physically. She didn’t dwell much on the missed opportunity and went back to her everyday life while someday hoping to complete the climb.
“I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’m definitely coming back,’” Lucy said. “Honestly, I didn’t really think about it for a while. At that point, I was going into eighth grade, and I kind of got caught up in school and everything and running … it was hard to even think about it because [of] just how hard it was.”
In 2018, Lucy began attending Naperville North High School. Her sophomore year, she asked her parents, “Can we please try Denali again?”
But just days after she asked, COVID-19 hit. Lucy knew she was going to have to wait at least another year or so before her second chance.
However, after months of waiting, it was finally time for Lucy to give Denali another shot. Her mother, Amy Westlake, packed Lucy and Rodney about 22 days worth of food, and Lucy made numerous trips to Mountain Hardwear, Patagonia and REI so she could have more than enough equipment to successfully handle the mountain’s conditions.
Even though Lucy ended her junior year of high school about a week early and missed some of her final exams, her teachers and friends all supported her. She flew from Chicago to Seattle, where she had a brief layover, before flying to Anchorage, Alaska. She then took a shuttle from Anchorage to Talkeetna, Alaska, a small village at the bottom of Denali, before she began her journey.
Each morning, Lucy would begin her day with breakfast, typically a bagel with peanut butter or some soup along with a bottle of water so she could stay hydrated. She would then hike for about an hour, take a 5-10 minute break — sometimes with a snack — and repeat the same process all day before setting up her sleeping bag and tent.
Eat, hike, sleep, repeat.
Eat, hike, sleep, repeat.
Eat, hike, sleep, repeat.
Overall, the journey was relatively smooth for Lucy and Rodney, but they did face some adversity. Initially, they began their trip with seven other climbers. On the second day of their hike, though, one of the climbers on their team fainted — a moment Lucy described as “super scary.”
“I looked back, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if this guy is alive,’” Lucy said. “So I was very, very frightened in that moment for his safety and for the safety of the group … it could definitely jeopardize the entire trip. So that was definitely a challenge, but luckily, he got up. He was OK.”
While working her way to the mountain’s peak, Lucy knew that each day mattered, and she didn’t want to have a repeat of 2017. There was some debate between her and her father and other team members, who weren’t sure if they wanted to make the entire climb. Eventually, Lucy and Rodney split from the rest of the team so they could successfully reach the mountain’s peak.
“I always feel like I’m responsible to whatever team I’m with,” Lucy said. “I always love being a part of a team and climbing together — you get really close together. But we got to the point where some people just weren’t comfortable with continuing up the mountain, so there was definitely a split in the team’s comfort level and physical ability.”
“That was a very hard decision, but me and my dad went up alone — just the two of us. I really had to ask myself if I could be responsible for both of us, but I decided to trust myself that I could do it and it paid off.”
When Lucy and Rodney finally ended their trek on Father’s Day, they were full of happiness. Neither took much time to take in the view or explore the mountain’s peak, but nonetheless, that didn’t stop them from cherishing the moment.
“Honestly, we were just kind of smiling,” Lucy said. “We didn’t really have any deep conversations or anything, but we were just so happy to be up there and so glad to finally reach our goal.”
After reaching the peak, it took Lucy and Rodney just two days to make the hike down. Just like she was four years ago, Lucy was feeling pretty burnt out but much more satisfied and relieved this time around.
“Getting down, technically, there’s more accidents,” Lucy said. “You’re fatigued just from hiking the whole time, and gravity is pulling you down. You’ve got to be on top of it going down — you can’t just check out — but it’s definitely physically easier.”
Along with highpointing, Lucy also runs cross-country at Naperville North and has participated in triathlon since she was 9 years old. She plans to graduate a semester early from Naperville North and attend college to study public policy and entrepreneurship. Her next goal is to become the youngest woman to complete the Explorers Grand Slam, which involves climbing the highest point in each continent.
Lucy lives her life by the mantra, “We all have mountains to climb.”
“I don’t want my story to just be about me,” Lucy said. “I hope to inspire other people to get out and climb their own mountains. I mean, we’re not all going to be mountain climbers, and not everyone should be a mountain climber. A lot of people just don’t like the outdoors, which is totally fine.”
“I feel like we all have different things in our lives that are challenges, and I feel like my story can relate to a lot of different challenges. I want to encourage people to get on top of whatever challenges they have. We just saw that, and I know it’s not always going to be easy and it might take more than 20 days of what Denali was, but I know we can all do it.”
