TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Despite Grace Tseng’s (曾格爾) latest ascent of the mountain Manaslu in Nepal, she has experienced a fall from grace after her achievements have been challenged and her WaBay fundraising account frozen.

Tseng made the climb after the Manaslu climbing season had supposedly ended and in the process became “the fastest female to summit Manaslu without supplementary oxygen,” according to Expolorersweb. Manaslu is the eighth-highest mountain in the world at 8,163 meters and she made the climb with three Sherpas in early October.

However, according to Formosa News, the 29-year-old “Goddess of Mountaineering’s” claim that she scaled Manaslu in just 13 hours has been questioned — though the article does not mention by whom. In response, the Taiwan fundraising website WaBay has “temporarily” frozen her account, which had raised over NT$5 million (US$156,000).

Tseng launched her fundraising drive in mid-March to support her race to claim the 14x8,000 m speed record. This refers to being the fastest woman to climb the world’s 14 mountains over 8,000 m above sea level without supplemental oxygen.

She was the first Taiwanese mountaineer to climb K2, the world’s second-highest peak, without oxygen, in July. Tseng intends to climb all 14 8,000 m mountains before she is 30 and has now summited 10.

The Italian climber Reinhold Messner was the first to complete them all, in 1986. As for women, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner of Austria was the first to climb them all without oxygen, in 2011.



(WaBay screenshot)















(Instagram, Gracetseng-Taiwan photos)