Nott began climbing in 1989 in her hometown of
Vail, Colorado. Early on, she dedicated her attention to
ice climbing and led a climb on a free-hanging icicle called "the Fang" within her first year of climbing. Throughout the 1990s, Nott focused her efforts on a number of technical ice climbs, particularly in the
Canadian Rockies, such as "Acid Howl" on
Mount Stanley,
British Columbia; "the Replicant" on
Mount Rundle,
Alberta; and the first ascent of the "Glass Onion", a difficult rock and ice route in southwestern Alaska. She later traveled to
Patagonia to climb
Fitz Roy, and to the
French Alps. A report issued by the NPS in 2007 summarized the evidence found in the search and investigation, and speculated about how the climbers perished. The report concluded that neither Nott nor McNeill fell when their gear was dropped at around , and surmised that the women continued to climb as high as before building a
snow cave, where they ultimately died. ==Legacy==