Deaf climbers with an artificial leg, and a person with epilepsy. Only two of the individuals in the group did not reach the summit. Heidi Zimmer is the first deaf woman to reach the summit of Mt. McKinley in Alaska. She is the first deaf individual to reach the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, as well as Mt. Elbrus in the Republic of Russia which has an elevation of 18,510 feet. She has a goal of completing the seven summits which consist of the highest peak in each continent. This is considered a huge accomplishment in the climbing world. Yasayuki Okobu,
Mount Elbrus The Soviet Union encouraged ascents of Elbrus, and in 1956 it was climbed "en masse" by 400 mountaineers to mark the 400th anniversary of the incorporation of Kabardino-Balkaria, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic where Elbrus was located. From 1959 through 1976, a cable car system was built in stages that can take visitors as high as . There are a wide variety of routes up the mountain, but the normal route, which is free of crevasses, continues more or less straight up the slope from the end of the cable car system. During the summer, it is not uncommon for