my husband and I took up mountain climbing at age 48, having done nothing more than trail hiking and family backpacking before. Once we started we became thoroughly addicted, altering our lifestyle to accommodate the training, altering our diets, and of course altering our spending habits to accommodate the need for gear. We've climbed as high as 20,000 ft (Bolivia) but are not going to be looking for such difficult goals in the future, maybe that's a temporary lull as we recover from the 20,000 footer (achieved just 4 wks ago). Love snow and glacier climbing; not into rock or ice climbing.