South Bay Hairstylist Sets Record While Climbing Mount Everest

CAMPBELL, CA — The owner of a South Bay hair studio is aiming to become the first American hairstylist on record to summit Mount Everest and has already set what is believed to be another world record.

Heather Werner, a San Jose resident and owner of Foundations Hair Studio in Campbell, is projected to reach the peak in a couple of weeks. Along the way, she picked up another record — the highest elevation haircut. Werner cut hair for four team members and Sherpa at 19,500 feet at Base Camp 1 and then cut another team member’s hair at 21,300 feet at Base Camp 2.

The previous record, according to the Guinness World Records, was 19,341 feet, set by Canadian Maurice Fiorio at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in 2015.

“A huge thank you to my models, who were brave enough to let me work when my brain was slightly oxygen-starved,” Werner wrote in an Instagram post last week. “If the weather holds and I’m not a wreck at higher camps, we may try to boost our number as we climb. But for now, it feels damn good to be a world record holder.”

If she completes the climb, Werner would be the third hairdresser in history out of over 4,000 climbers to summit the world’s highest mountain, according to a registry kept by The Himalayan Database. The other two were Catherine Dupasquier of Canada in 2012 and Johann Lucian Shivantha of Sri Lanka in 2018.

Werner’s goal, according to her husband, Chris Werner, is to summit the highest peak in each of the seven continents. The only climb left after Mount Everest would be Alaska’s Mount Denali.

Follow Werner's adventures up the mountain on her Instagram page.