Summiting in Silence - Ascend Issue 1 Spring 2025
Deaf climbers tackle the world’s tallest peaks.
By Sophie Fowler
Exiting the Goodwill parking lot with a trunk full of second-hand climbing equipment, Scott Lehmann and his two friends began their drive towards Mount Rainier. The tattered clothing, chipped ice axes, and weathered layers filled the back of his Toyota Corolla on the group’s post-college, cross-country road trip. Lehmann’s impulsive decision to hike up with no prior climbing experience led them to the base of Washington’s tallest peak with curiosity and excitement. The colorful wildflower meadows of the mountain’s landscape were quickly replaced by shimmering slopes of fresh snow as Ranier’s features guided the group’s ascent. Moving his hands quickly to form letters, Lehmann utilized his typical communication mode of American Sign Language (ASL) on the mountain to converse with his group. As a deaf climber, his journey to the top involves a more planned approach than most.
Standing at 14,410 feet above sea level, Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the United States and offers numerous challenging routes to the top. The three to four day climb requires a high vertical elevation gain and travels over 10 miles in distance. The path to the summit requires crampons while belaying with an ax, which are difficult moves for some beginners. Lehmann and his friends continued up until only the clear blue sky surrounded them, and although enjoying the beautiful scenery, encountered challenges around 1,500 vertical feet from the summit as they struggled to put on crampons. The recent college graduates were unfazed, however, and found themselves transfixed by the journey.
After returning from his road trip, Lehmann searched for mountaineering courses, but failed to find any offered in ASL, let alone any that would provide an interpreter. He resorted to learning through YouTube, the only accessible educational resource at that time. As he started to build his mountaineering skills, his now wife, Shayna Unger, also grew interested in climbing by watching Lehmann. Today, both Lehmann and Unger are full-time mountaineers, and have climbed many of the world’s tallest peaks.
Born deaf, both Lehmann and Unger were raised in Frederick, Maryland, an hour outside of Washington D.C. Home to over 3,000 deaf and hard of hearing residents, the farm town hosts one of two Maryland School for the Deaf campuses, with over 450 students aged 3 to 21. The couple met at the school when Lehmann was 17 and Unger was 14. Growing up, Lehmann and Unger played basketball, football, track, and volleyball, but did not spend a lot of time in the wilderness.
After Unger graduated from college in 2015, the couple took a trip to Africa. Neither planned to hike a mountain, but once they got to Tanzania, they spontaneously embarked up Mount Kilimanjaro. At 19,341 feet, the highest mountain in Africa requires an ascent of 4,084 feet with 49% less oxygen.
“Scott said, ‘Hey, well why don’t we do Mount Kilimanjaro?’ I had never climbed before so I [didn’t] know if I [could] do it,” says Unger. “He said, ‘No, don't worry, I’ll teach you.’ I just had the attitude where I just said yes to everything.”
This climb marked the couple’s first peak together and Unger’s first climb ever. After reaching the summit on November 7, 2015, the impromptu adventure kick-started a lengthy climbing career. In 2021, the couple climbed the 20,310-foot Denali in Alaska. Unger got to climb with her younger brother, Chad Unger, who is also deaf. Chad, a photographer, documented the trio’s journey as they became the first all-deaf team to reach the summit of North America’s tallest mountain.
During the 13-day expedition, the group formed a bond being tethered by rope during the climb and endured below-freezing nights together in the tents. With the Alaskan summit complete, Lehmann became the first deaf individual to summit all of the 50 states’ highest points. That achievement took him nine years to complete after starting in 2012 in New Mexico. He traveled over 10,000 miles to complete the milestone.
Now, Lehmann and Unger have a unique career together that they never thought was possible. Out of necessity, they learned the importance of planning and preparation through their expeditions, especially when it comes to their communication barrier.
“When we’re planning an expedition, it comes with its challenges,” says Lehmann. “There will be people on the expedition and most of them are hearing, so for us to have any sort of conversation or communication is a big challenge.”
When planning a new expedition, their first step is to memorize the route, often looking it over 100 times, but knowing that the route alone isn’t enough for them. Without phones or cell service, it can be difficult to receive news on the mountain. Non-deaf climbers rely on radios to hear weather reports and important information for summiting the mountain, but Lehmann and Unger do not have that option.
“We really relied on other people who would use the radio to be able to get the weather forecast for that day, or we would look from our tent at the other tents and see if their head lamps were turned on to see if they were going to summit push or not,” says Unger.
They rely heavily on their Garmin inReach, a two-way messaging system through a global satellite network. With the device, they can text each other and read weather reports independently. It’s not always reliable, so Lehmann and Unger bring notepads to communicate with other climbers on the mountain, but some are unresponsive towards them.
“Some people, they just said, ‘no, we don’t want to be responsible for the both of you,’” says Unger.
When working with a guide, tour group, or the general public, Unger feels that many people already have a stereotypical idea of who a deaf person is and what their needs are, so the couple is forced to overcompensate.
“We have to show them our sort of resume of climbs and our experience and we have to tell them the routes that we’ve studied before we book with them,” says Unger.
Lehmann and Unger both agree that one of the most important aspects of climbing is trust, which is established by creating clear expectations and boundaries before starting a climb. If one team member gets sick and needs to go down, the whole team descends.
One way to build trust is by working with a team of individuals who have already experienced expeditions together. While summiting Everest in 2023, Lehmann and Unger met twin Sherpas, Mingma Dorchi Sherpa and Mingma Tenje Sherpa. The new friends bonded quickly and developed creative ways to communicate. The following year, the group of four summited Makalu and Manaslu in Nepal together. Now, Lehmann and Unger bring the two Sherpas with them for the most strenuous mountains, like the 8,000 meter (26,247 feet) peak expeditions.
At first, the Sherpas only spoke Nepalese and a small amount of English, so Lehmann and Unger worried how they would all communicate. They tried typing on phones using a translation app, but struggled with taking off gloves at 26,000 feet. So, they taught the Sherpas how to sign using a mix of ASL, group-generated gestures, and Nepali Sign Language.
“Many people will just look at us shocked,” says Unger. “We see their eyes wide open, like, how are you all communicating?”
When working with the Sherpas, the couple positions themselves in a concise way. One Sherpa leads while the other is the caboose. It can be a game of telephone, but so far the four have climbed four 8,000 meter peaks together: Mount Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, and Manaslu.
“This is why I climb,” says Unger. “This is why we do hard things on mountains, for this amazing view that we can only get by being here.”
Outside of their climbs, Lehmann and Unger started a project called Seeing Beyond: Seven Summits, which aims to inspire deaf and hard of hearing climbers to go out on expeditionsBy sharing their dream of summiting peaks with the community, the couple hopes they can encourage more people to get outdoors. Supported by brands like Mountain Hardwear and Leave No Trace, Lehmann and Unger travel around the U.S. and Europe for speaking engagements and presentations, placing emphasis on their advocacy for the Deaf Community. They also visit deaf schools to present on their many journeys, showing off their gear and letting kids try on equipment.
“I hope to inspire our Deaf Community, especially the youth," says Unger. “For them to see a role model, for them to see a deaf person in that outdoor space, for them to say there’s deaf representation in all these other spaces… the possibilities are endless.”