Cory Richards (climber)

Last updated
Cory Richards
Personal information
Nationality United States
BornMay 1981 [1]
Colorado
Climbing career
Known forFirst American to climb an eight-thousander in winter, first winter ascent of Gasherbrum II

Cory Richards (born May 1981) is an American climber, mountaineer, and photographer. He became the first American to climb an eight-thousander in winter [2] when he was part of the three man team who made the first winter ascent of Gasherbrum II. [3]

Contents

Personal

Richards is from Boulder, Colorado. His father, Court (George Lowe's mountain partner), taught him to climb when he was a child as young as 5. [4]

He has written a book "The Color of Everything" about his life experiences in 2024. [5]

Climbing career

In January 2009, together with Ines Papert, Richards established a new route on the north face of Kwangde Shar (6093 m) in Nepal. [6] A year later, in January 2010, he made the first ascent of the Central South Buttress of Tawoche (6495 m) in Nepal's Khumbu Valley, along with Renan Öztürk. [7]

In 2009 Richards made an unsuccessful attempt on Makalu with Steve House [8] but it wasn't until spring of 2010 that Richards summitted his first eight-thousander, Lhotse, climbing solo with oxygen. [9]

Returning to the Himalaya in 2011 for another winter expedition, Richards and his two climbing partners, Simone Moro and Denis Urubko, made the first winter ascent of Gasherbrum II. They reached the summit at 11:30 am on February 2, 2011, without supplemental oxygen or porters and Richards became the first American to climb an eight-thousander in winter. [3] During the descent, they were caught up in an avalanche, but eventually managed to reach their base-camp without major injuries. [2] Richards filmed the expedition, the resulting film Cold [10] won the Grand Prize at the 2011 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. [11]

For the Gasherbrum II ascent, the three members of the team were awarded the Polish Colossians Prize  [ pl ] for 2010 in the category of mountaineering, [12] and Richards himself was also awarded the title of Adventurer of the Year for 2012 by National Geographic magazine. [13]

An attempt on Everest in 2012 with Conrad Anker was unsuccessful, although returning to Everest in 2016 he summitted without using bottled oxygen. [14] Then in 2021 he was unsuccessful on Dhaulagiri. [14] In 2022 Richards stated that he was "leaving climbing behind, at least for a time" [14] .

Photographic work

Richards was a National Geographic Photographer Fellow in 2014 and 2019, he photographs mountains and wildlife in the Himalayas and Karakorum, Antarctica, Southeast Asia, and Africa and his photography has appeared in National Geographic magazine, Outside, and the New York Times. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lhotse</span> Eight-thousander and 4th-highest mountain on Earth, located in Nepal and China

Lhotse is the fourth-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga. At an elevation of 8,516 metres (27,940 ft) above sea level, the main summit is on the border between Tibet Autonomous Region of China and the Khumbu region of Nepal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reinhold Messner</span> Italian mountaineer, adventurer and explorer (born 1944)

Reinhold Andreas Messner is an Italian climber, explorer, and author from the German-speaking province of South Tyrol. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen. He was the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, doing so without supplementary oxygen. Messner was the first to cross Antarctica and Greenland with neither snowmobiles nor dog sleds and also crossed the Gobi Desert alone. He is widely considered to be the greatest mountaineer of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Makalu</span> Eight-thousander and 5th-highest mountain on Earth, located in Nepal and China

Makalu is the fifth-highest mountain on Earth, with a summit at an elevation of 8,485 metres (27,838 ft) AMSL. It is located in the Mahalangur Himalayas 19 km (12 mi) southeast of Mount Everest, on the China–Nepal border. One of the eight-thousanders, Makalu is an isolated peak shaped like a four-sided pyramid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eight-thousander</span> Mountain peaks of over 8,000 m

The eight-thousanders are the 14 mountains recognized by the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) as being more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) in height above sea level, and sufficiently independent of neighbouring peaks. There is no precise definition of the criteria used to assess independence, and at times, the UIAA has considered whether the list should be expanded to 20 mountain peaks by including the major satellite peaks of eight-thousanders. All of the eight-thousanders are located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia, and their summits lie in the altitude range known as the death zone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gasherbrum II</span> Eight-thousander and 13th-highest mountain on Earth, located in Pakistan and China

Gasherbrum II ; surveyed as K4, is the 13th highest mountain in the world at 8,035 metres (26,362 ft) above sea level. It is the third-highest peak of the Gasherbrum massif, and is located in the Karakoram, on the border between Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan and Xinjiang, China. The mountain was first climbed on July 7, 1956, by an Austrian expedition which included Fritz Moravec, Josef Larch, and Hans Willenpart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conrad Anker</span> American rock climber, mountaineer, and author

Conrad Anker is an American rock climber, mountaineer, and author. He was the team leader of The North Face climbing team for 26 years until 2018. In 1999, he located George Mallory's body on Everest as a member of a search team looking for the remains of the British climber who was last seen in 1924. Anker had a heart attack in 2016 during an attempted ascent of Lunag Ri with David Lama. He was flown via helicopter to Kathmandu where he underwent emergency coronary angioplasty with a stent placed in his proximal left anterior descending artery. Afterwards he retired from high altitude mountaineering, but otherwise he continues his work. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.

Vladyslav "Slava" Oleksandrovych Terzyul, was a Ukrainian alpinist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artur Hajzer</span> Polish mountain climber (1962–2013)

Artur Henryk "Słon” Hajzer was a Polish mountaineer. Hajzer summitted seven eight-thousanders, several via new routes and made the first winter climb of Annapurna on February 3, 1987.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simone Moro</span> Italian mountaineer and alpinist (born 1967)

Simone Moro is an Italian mountaineer known for having made first winter ascents of four of the fourteen eight-thousanders: Shishapangma in 2005, Makalu in 2009, Gasherbrum II in 2011, and Nanga Parbat in 2016. No other climber has made more first winter ascents of an eight-thousander in history. He has summited Everest four times, in 2000, 2002, 2006, and 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denis Urubko</span> Russian-Polish mountaineer

Denis Urubko is a Russian-Polish climber. In 2009, as a citizen of Kazakhstan he became the 15th person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders and the 8th person to achieve the feat without supplemental oxygen. He had Soviet citizenship, but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union he became a citizen of Kazakhstan, but renounced the citizenship in 2012. In 2013, he received Russian citizenship and on 12 February 2015 he received Polish citizenship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlos Soria Fontán</span> Spanish mountain climber (born 1939)

Carlos Soria Fontán is a Spanish mountaineer who has taken up the challenge of becoming the oldest person in the world to reach the summits of the 14 eight-thousanders. He is the only climber to have ascended ten mountains of more than 8,000 meters after turning 60, and is the oldest person in history to have successfully climbed K2, Broad Peak (68), Makalu (69), Gasherbrum I (70), Manaslu, Kanchenjunga and Annapurna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Bielecki</span> Polish mountainier

Adam Radosław Bielecki is a Polish alpine and high-altitude climber, known for the first winter ascents of the eight-thousanders: Gasherbrum I and Broad Peak. In his book Spod zamarzniętych powiek, written with co-author Dominik Szczepański, Bielecki tells the story of his climbings, memories from Himalayan expeditions, and the effort the highest mountains demand.

Renan Öztürk is a Turkish-American rock climber, free soloist, mountaineer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He is best known for climbing the Shark's Fin route on his second attempt to Meru Peak in the Himalayas with Jimmy Chin and Conrad Anker in 2011, where he also suffered a minor stroke. The successful 2011 ascent of the Shark's Fin on Meru and a prior attempt in 2008 were detailed in the 2015 documentary film Meru.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nirmal Purja</span> Nepalese-British mountaineer

Nirmal Purja is a Nepal-born naturalised British mountaineer. Prior to taking on a career in mountaineering, he served in the British Army with the Brigade of Gurkhas followed by the Special Boat Service (SBS), the special forces unit of the Royal Navy. Purja is notable for having climbed all 14 eight-thousanders in a time of six months and six days with the aid of bottled oxygen between April and October 2019. This was a record at the time of climbing, although it was broken in 2023 by Kristin Harila and Tenjen Sherpa, who summitted all 14 eight-thousanders in 92 days. Purja was the first person to reach the summits of Mount Everest, Lhotse and Makalu within 48 hours. In 2021, Purja, along with a team of nine other Nepalese climbers, completed the first winter ascent of K2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kristin Harila</span> Norwegian mountaineer

Kristin Harila is a Norwegian-Northern Saami mountaineer and former cross-country skier. During 2022–2023, she set multiple speed records for the ascent of all 14 eight-thousanders, which are the peaks in the world that are over 8,000 metres in elevation.

Sirbaz Khan is a Pakistani mountaineer. He is the first Pakistani to summit all 14 eighth-thousander peaks in the world.

References

  1. ↑ "Offical Facebook profile" . Retrieved 2024-05-06.
  2. 1 2 Cahall, Fitz. "Climber Cory Richards". National Geographic Adventure . Archived from the original on November 13, 2011. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  3. 1 2 MacDonald, Dougald (2 February 2011). "First Winter Ascent of Gasherbrum II". Climbing . Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  4. ↑ "Cory Richards on Avalanche: "Like looking at your own death"". Rock and Ice.com. Archived from the original on 2011-08-09. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  5. ↑ Richards, Cory (2024). The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within. Random House. ISBN   978-0593596791 . Retrieved 9 November 2024.
  6. ↑ "Kwangde Shar, Nepal" . Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  7. ↑ "Tawoche Central South Buttress by Renan Ozturk and Cory Richards". Planet Mountain. February 2010. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  8. ↑ "Steve House and Cory Richards, Makalu 2009: Steve House and Cory Richards, Makalu 2, Steve 0". Patagonia. 1 June 2009. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  9. ↑ O'Neil, Devon (August 2017). "To Get to the Summit, Cory Richards Had to Lose It All". Outside Online. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  10. ↑ "Cold – trailer". You Tube. 18 December 2012. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  11. ↑ "2011 Banff Mountain Film Competition Grand Prize winner a visceral image of the world at 8,000m". Banff Centre. 14 November 2011. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  12. ↑ "alpinizm 2010". kolosy.pl. Archived from the original on 2016-04-03. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  13. 1 2 "Cory Richards - Explorer and Photojournalist". National Geographic. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  14. 1 2 3 Potter, Steven (23 May 2022). "Why is Cory Richards Retiring from Climbing?". Climbing. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
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