Shayna Unger is a deaf woman, mountaineer, educator, and storyteller, born into a multigenerational deaf family and raised in the deaf community. Growing up, there wasn’t much deaf representation in the outdoors, nor access to outdoor education due to communication barriers. It wasn’t until after college that she began exploring the outdoors through backcountry hiking, bikepacking, sea kayaking, and mountain climbing.
Since climbing her first summit at Mount Kilimanjaro in 2015, she fell in love with climbing. Over the years, she has climbed some of the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Everest (where she became the first deaf woman to summit), Lhotse, Makalu, Manaslu, Denali, Aconcagua, and Kilimanjaro.
Beyond the peaks, her passion lies in making the outdoors accessible for the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, spreading awareness, and changing global perceptions of deaf individuals.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
- Becoming the first Deaf woman in the world to summit Mount Everest
- Being part of the first all-Deaf team to summit Denali, Alaska
- Back-to-back 8,000m peaks within 26 hours: Mount Everest and Lhotse
- Alongside Scott Lehmann: 1 of FIRST DEAF INDIVIDUALS TO: SUMMIT LHOTSE, NEPAL (2023), SUMMIT MAKALU, NEPAL (2024) & SUMMIT MANASLU, NEPAL (2024).
