Would you climb the world’s tallest mountain? How about climbing it while wearing a skirt?

Julia Quispe Tincuta comes from Bolivia, a mountainous country in South America. She remembers the first time she reached the peak of Huayna Potosi in Bolivia. That mountain rises 19,974 feet into the sky.

“When I arrived at the summit I felt like I was in the air, like being in heaven,” Ms. Tincuta says. She and the rest of her climbing group all made the climb in traditional “cholita” clothing—billowing red skirts. Cholita is a Spanish word for a young, Bolivian woman. The climbers carried their belongings in colorful blankets.

“From the mountain I saw the lights of the city of La Paz shining like stars,” she says. “I thought at that moment that I am never going to stop climbing.”

Instead of using modern mountaineering outfits, the cholitas wear their layered skirts and cardigans. They do swap their bowler hats for climbing helmets. They also add crampons to their shoes. (These grippy devices help shoes move over ice without slipping.)

These cholitas say they have conquered Argentina’s Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas. They’ve also summited the Ojos del Salado, the world’s highest volcano, on the Chile-Argentina border.

Now they are training to climb an even higher peak. They hope to scale Everest in 2025.

“I want to be the first woman in a skirt to reach the top of Everest, because I want to wave our skirts and the flag of Bolivia,” says Elena Quispe Tincuta. She is Julia’s sister.

The cholitas are used to living at high altitude and carrying heavy weight. They say this will help them on Everest—if they can get enough money to travel and make their climb.

In His hand are the depths of the Earth; the heights of the mountains are His also. — Psalm 95:4