‘It was my dad’s idea’: Wisconsinite mountaineer reflects on inspirational father

Lori Schneider is an extremely accomplished outdoorswoman and athlete. The Wisconsin native has completed the Seven Summits, a capstone achievement for any serious mountaineer. She is the first person with multiple sclerosis to accomplish the feat. 

Schneider says the reason she got into mountaineering is her late father, Neal, who died last year. The two of them climbed Mount Kilimanjaro together in the early 1990s, setting off Schneider’s decade-and-a-half-long mountain-climbing journey. 

Schneider spoke with WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” about her father and how he sustained and supported her throughout her life.  

The following was edited for brevity and clarity.

Rob Ferrett: You started mountaineering because of your dad. Can you tell us how that journey began?

Lori Schneider: One day, [my dad] came home and said he’d listened to a speaker at a local service club in Janesville who was talking about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. And Dad said, “You know, someday I’d love to do that.” And of course, I adored my dad, and I said, “Well, someday I’ll go with you, Dad.”

It took about 20 years of life progressing for both of us when we revisited that idea of going to Africa and climbing Kilimanjaro. In 1993, I was going to be in Africa for part of the summer and we planned to meet there and climb Mount Kilimanjaro together.

So that was really the start of that whole climbing adventure. It was the first time for me, other than hiking in Colorado, and the first time for my dad ever to do any mountaineering.  

RF: What went into the preparation? 

LS: It was a huge preparation, because Dad was going to be turning 61, hopefully on the day that we had planned to summit. So we really had to both get in good physical condition. We both took a year of preparation to do a lot of running and hiking with backpacks on and just getting some overall strength. It took a long time, but we reached the summit on Dad’s 61st birthday.

It was funny because it was so difficult — much more difficult than we thought. [The climb] was about a week long, and I remember linking arm-in-arm right before the summit, and Dad looked at me and said, “I don’t know if I can make it.” I said, “I don’t know if I can make it, either.” And we literally joined arms and kind of dragged each other to the summit. And we made it there on his birthday.

RF: What was that moment like — the two of you, arm in arm, stepping onto the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro?

LS: Well, [we were] exhausted, but I had packed a tiny birthday cake in my backpack, so I pulled that out. I didn’t think about the fact that it would be frozen solid, so we couldn’t really even take a bite. And Dad was very nauseous from the altitude sickness, but I’d also had a little medal made for him, and we put that around his neck.

It was wonderful, but we certainly wanted to get down quickly, because it was tough to breathe at 19,340 feet.

RF: You didn’t stop there, though. This is one of the Seven Summits, the highest mountains on each continent, and you wanted to keep going. What led from Kilimanjaro to the rest of the mountains? 

LS: It was my dad’s idea to keep going. About seven years later, he called me up one day and he said, “I think we should do another climb. But this time, it has to be harder.” I kind of laughed. I said, “Dad, do you remember we hardly made the last one?” And he said, “No, we’re going to train really hard. Let’s train for another year and try to do another of the Seven Summits.”

So we set our sights on Mount Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America. But the problem was right when we had decided to do this climb, I woke up one morning numb on one side of my body and was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. So Dad’s now worried about taking his daughter with multiple sclerosis to South America to try another mountain climb. And I was worried about taking my 68-year-old father there.

It was tough, but we trained very, very hard, and we went there. Dad ended up getting altitude sickness at around 18,000 feet, and he had to turn around. We sent him back down with a porter. I remember him looking at me and saying, “Lori, you’ve got to do this, and you know why.” And I said, “I know, I know.” And he said, “You have to prove to yourself that you’re mentally stronger than this disease. It can take things from your body, but don’t let it take your will to live and follow your dreams.”

He went down with a guide and I followed another guide up for the next couple of days, and summited the mountain and came back down.

We were so excited to be together again. Dad said, “You keep climbing the Seven Summits, but my next one is going to be Space Mountain in Disney World.” So that was his last official summit for a number of years.

RF: I understand your dad is part of the inspiration, too, for founding Empowerment Through Adventure. Can you talk about what inspired you to do this and what you set out to do?

LS: When I finished climbing the Seven Summits, Dad said to me, “What do you want to do next?” And I said, “I’ve finished this chapter in my life of climbing mountains for myself. But what I’d like to do with your help is to encourage others who have obstacles to overcome or live with disabilities to find that empowerment that I found through climbing.” 

And so the year after I climbed Everest, Dad helped me organize a trip to go back to Africa to climb Kilimanjaro. It would be his second climb at 78 years old. We brought a group of 10 people with multiple sclerosis, four people with Parkinson’s disease and then a lot of medical personnel and support personnel.

Dad was the inspiration in that group. He never gave up. He kept marching along. He did get altitude sickness once again and had to turn around. But he was such an inspiration to everyone there, to just keep going and do it for the love of following a dream.