Park City climber begins final push to complete Seven Summits

On December 12, Park City resident Jenn Drummond began what she described as the final push to complete the Seven Summits, the highest points on each continent. Drummond has completed five of the seven peaks and plans to tackle Mount Elbrus in Europe and Denali in North America in 2026, with a return to Denali scheduled for June 2026. Her campaign follows a string of milestones that include climbing Mount Everest in 2021 and completing the Seven Second Summits in 2023, when she became the first woman to reach the second highest peak on every continent.

The Seven Summits demand months of preparation and long periods of acclimatization to altitude and weather. Drummond, a parent of seven, balanced those demands with family responsibilities by adapting training methods to life at home, including the use of a hypoxic tent to simulate high altitude. She has spent the past two years returning to continents where she had already climbed the Second Summits, shifting strategy from earlier attempts and learning from setbacks on previous expeditions. Those challenges have included delays in Indonesia and multiple attempts on Mount Logan that forced tactical changes.

Locally the story resonates beyond personal achievement. Drummond is a motivational speaker and coach who speaks at schools, and her visibility has drawn attention to Park City as a base for high performance outdoor training and resilience programming. Her emphasis on teamwork, learning from failure and gratitude for community support feeds civic pride and provides an example of how local athletes can combine elite ambition with family life.

There are operational implications as well. Drummond plans to self guide on Denali, which places onus on her for route selection and safety decisions in a mountain environment that routinely requires careful risk management and logistical planning. Her path from a serious 2018 car accident to elite mountaineering underscores long term themes of recovery, adaptation and the role of local support networks in sustaining ambitious pursuits. As she moves toward Elbrus and Denali next year, Summit County will be watching a local climber translate hard earned experience into two final climbs that complete an uncommon global achievement.