Rebecca Stephens (climber)

Rebecca Stephens MBE (born 3 October 1961) is a British journalist, mountaineer, and television presenter. She was the first British woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Stephens originally trained as a journalist and pursued that career for some ten years, becoming deputy editor of the Financial Times magazine Resident Abroad.

Always an enthusiastic skier, in 1989 Stephens took up the sport of climbing accidentally when as a journalist she accompanied an expedition attempting the North East Ridge of Mount Everest. In 1993 she was herself part of a later Mount Everest expedition which reached the summit of the mountain on 17 May, becoming the first British woman to do so. On 22 November 1994 she became the third woman, and the first British woman, to climb the seven continental summits of the Messner list (Carstensz list). On 3 February 1996 she became the fourth woman, and the second British woman (two months behind Ginette Harrison) to climb all seven continental summits of the Bass list when she summitted Kosciuszko in mainland Australia.

She was appointed an MBE in 1994.

She was a presenter on BBC television's science series Tomorrow's World from 1994 to 1996.

In addition to her mountaineering exploits, Stephens has sailed the Southern Seas to the South Magnetic Pole and Antarctica and crossed the South Atlantic island of South Georgia. With the polar explorers Ranulph Fiennes and Mike Stroud, she competed in an eight-day Eco-Challenge, which consisted of running, biking and canoeing across the Canadian Rockies.

Selected publications

• Rebecca Stephens, Buying a Home Abroad
• Rebecca Stephens, On Top of the World (London: Macmillan, 1994)