51: How Allie Pepper, a world class mountaineer coped when menopause threatened to end her climbing career

Explicit content warning

03/23/23 • 38 min

How would you cope if your career and life's purpose rely on a strong, healthy functioning body and seemingly overnight menopause threatened to take all of that away from you?
Allie Pepper is an Australian mountaineer with 23 years of climbing experience. Mountaineering is not only Allie's passion but also her business; Allie Pepper Adventures.
In 2021, amongst the chaos of COVID and a relationship breakdown, Allie was 45 and had no idea that she was perimenopausal. Then seemingly overnight she went from being a woman who summits peaks for business and pleasure to a menopausal wreck.
Two years on, I spoke to Allie from Nepal on the eve of kicking off her current project, to climb to the true summits of all 14 of the world's 8000m peaks without additional oxygen, in the world's fastest time.
In this episode you will hear:

How Allie went from failing her HSC and being a self-proclaimed hippie to a world-class mountaineer, reaching, amongst others, the summits of Mount Everest and also one of the world's most dangerous mountains, Annapurna.
How a simple decision to come off the oral contraceptive pill at 45 flung her into a menopausal nightmare, seemingly overnight leading her to believe she would never be able to climb again.
The 12-month challenge she went through to find support and a therapy that worked for her.
Her current 14 Peaks Project which if successful will position her as one of the world's most successful woman mountaineers.

Resources:

Allie Pepper - website
Allie Pepper - Instagram
Follow Allie's progress on her Garmin inReach
WellFemme
Gaia Online Streaming Platform

Other episodes you may enjoy:

Dr Kelly Teagle, founder of WellFemme
Jodie Priess on the importance of advocacy in the face of adversity
Dr Marita Long on talking to your GP about menopause

Thank you for listening to my show!
Join the conversation on Instagram

How Allie went from failing her HSC and being a self-proclaimed hippie to a world-class mountaineer, reaching, amongst others, the summits of Mount Everest and also one of the world's most dangerous mountains, Annapurna.
How a simple decision to come off the oral contraceptive pill at 45 flung her into a menopausal nightmare, seemingly overnight leading her to believe she would never be able to climb again.
The 12-month challenge she went through to find support and a therapy that worked for her.
Her current 14 Peaks Project which if successful will position her as one of the world's most successful woman mountaineers.

Resources:

Allie Pepper - website
Allie Pepper - Instagram
Follow Allie's progress on her Garmin inReach
WellFemme
Gaia Online Streaming Platform

Other episodes you may enjoy:

Dr Kelly Teagle, founder of WellFemme
Jodie Priess on the importance of advocacy in the face of adversity
Dr Marita Long on talking to your GP about menopause

Thank you for listening to my show!
Join the conversation on Instagram

Previous Episode

50: Vulvas, Vaginas and More with Dr Ardelle Piper (replay)

Where can you learn everything you need to know about changes to your vulva and vagina during menopause, in one place?
Right here!!
Sitting down to record an episode with Dr Ardelle Piper was an absolute blast. Ardelle is generous with her time and her knowledge as we touched on topics including vulva and vaginal care during perimenopause and into post-menopause.
No area of this topic is left untouched including maintaining a healthy sex life, managing internal and external dryness and discomfort, treatment options and so much more.
Dr Piper is a board-certified OBGYN in Canada and completed a specialty training year in Midlife Women's Health in 2014.
With COVID, she innovated her practice to become virtual and now is busier than ever providing video consultation menopause care to women local to her.
Ardelle is an active menopause educator and advocate and co-founder of niah, a soon-to-be-launched provider of modern menopause care for modern women.
In this episode we discuss:

What changes you can expect
Why do these changes happen
What you can do to treat changes - with home care and prescribed therapies

Connect with Dr Ardelle Piper here:
Dr Piper on Instagram
niah on Instagram
We talked about:
Australasian Menopausal Society

Thank you for listening to my show!
Join the conversation on Instagram

Next Episode

52: Dr Linda Dear on giving menopausal women in NZ and Australia a voice

How can we measure the true impact of perimenopause and menopause?
By giving women a voice.
Dr Linda Dear crafted and launched the most extensive online survey for women to share the impact of menopause on their lives with data being collected across both NZ and Australia.
And the results of these surveys will be shared with the respective governments and health and employment sectors to craft much-needed change.
In her own words, Dr Dear is a doctor, menopause specialist, perimenopausal woman, mother of two young, exhausting but wonderful boys, ex-personal trainer and yoga teacher, ex-gymnast and psychology graduate.
With these skills and qualifications, she provides women at her specialist menopausal clinic with a unique and holistic approach to medicine and menopause therapy.
In this episode you will learn:

What led Linda to found a specialist menopause clinic with minimum 1-hour consultations
Why Linda crafted the survey and what change she hopes the results will drive
How Linda found her way from a UK Commonwealth Games Gymnast to a GP in New Zealand

Resources:
Take the Australian Survey here.
Linda's Clinic Website
Facebook
This Changes Everything by Niki Bezzant

You will also enjoy listening to:
Prof Rebecca Mitchell
Dr Kelly Teagle

Thank you for listening to my show!
Join the conversation on Instagram

Dear Menopause - 51: How Allie Pepper, a world class mountaineer coped when menopause threatened to end her climbing career

Transcript

[00:10] Sonya: Today you're going to meet Ellie Pepper. Ellie is an incredible woman, but be warned, she's unbelievably humble and talks down her successes and achievements considerably. So I'm going to let you get to know her, but please know she has achieved things in this world that very few people have. Now, two years ago, at the age of 45, ellie found that menopause literally set her down on her ass and she thought that her mountaineering career was over. She'll share with you the journey