DENVER – Former Steamboat elementary school teacher and mountaineer Lori Schneider is the first person living with MS to summit Mount Everest and complete the Seven Summits. Schneider will be in Steamboat to share her remarkable journey of scaling the highest peak on each continent and will also inspire others to climb beyond their own preconceived limitations and live their dreams.
“Empowerment Through Adventure: Climbing Beyond Our Limits,” will take place 2:30 - 4 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 26 at the Bud Werner Memorial Library in Steamboat Springs. The program is presented by the Colorado-Wyoming Chapter, National Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society and is free to the public.
Schneider’s first mountain climb took place in 1993 when she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with her father to celebrate his 61st birthday. Six years later she was 43-years-old, teaching at Soda Creek Elementary School and planning a second climb with her father - this time Mount Aconcagua in South America - when she woke up one day and the entire right side of her body was numb. After three months of tests she learned the cause of her numbness when she was diagnosed with MS, a disease that affects the central nervous system by disrupting the flow of information from the brain to the body that can cause a range of symptoms including vision impairment, cognition issues and loss of movement.
Schneider decided to continue to secretly train for the climb for a year, not telling anyone about her diagnosis for fear they would not allow her to do the climb. She also needed to prove to herself that she was still in control of her body on some level and wanted to move beyond her fear of the label of MS. She made the Aconcagua in climb in 2000 and went on to scale Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Elbrus, Mt. McKinley (Denali), Vinson Massif, Mt. Kosciuszko and in 2009, Mt Everest.
Today Schneider is an author, international motivational speaker and advocate for people living with neurological disorders and disabilities who works to help empower others to scale life’s mountains and obstacles to achieve their aspirations.
To register for the free program, visit www.blacktie-colorado.com/rsvp and enter event code MSLori. For additional information, call 303-698-5436.
Colorado and Wyoming have one of the highest incidences of MS in the nation and the Chapter has offices located in Grand Junction, Denver, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins in Colorado and Cheyenne and Casper in Wyoming to serve more than 100,000 people affected by MS in the two-state area.