The Seven Summits are the highest mountains of each of the seven traditional continents. Climbing to the summit of all of them was first done on 30 April 1985 by Richard Bass. Once considered a mountaineering challenge, in January 2023, Climbing said "Today, the Seven Summits are a relatively common—almost cliché—tour of each continent's highest peak", and that the real challenge was the Explorer's Grand Slam, the Seven Summits with the North and South poles.
The International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) recognises eight-thousanders as the 14 mountains that are more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) in height above sea level, and are considered to be sufficiently independent of neighbouring peaks. There is no precise definition of the criteria used to assess independence, and, since 2012, the UIAA has been involved in a process to consider whether the list should be expanded to 20 mountains. All eight-thousanders are located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia, and their summits are in the death zone.
Erik Weihenmayer is an American athlete, adventurer, author, activist and motivational speaker. He was the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on May 25, 2001. As a result of this accomplishment he was featured on the cover of Time magazine. He also completed the Seven Summits in September 2002, one of only 150 mountaineers at the time to do so, but the only climber who achieved this while blind. In 2008, he also added the Carstensz Pyramid thus completing the Eight Summits. Weihenmayer has also made noteworthy climbs up the Nose of El Capitan in Yosemite in 1996, and ascended Losar, a 2,700-foot (820 m) vertical ice face in the Himalayas in 2008.
Edmund Viesturs is an American high-altitude mountaineer, corporate speaker, and well known author in the mountain climbing community. He was the first American climber to ascend all 14 of the world's eight-thousander mountains, and the 5th person to do so without supplemental oxygen. Along with Apa Sherpa, he has summitted peaks of over 8,000 meters on 21 occasions, including Mount Everest seven times.
Khoo Swee Chiow is a Singaporean adventurer, author, consultant, and motivational speaker. Khoo is the first Southeast Asian and the fourth person in the world to complete The Explorers Grand Slam, that is, the North Pole, the South Pole, and the Seven Summits.
Richard Daniel "Dick" Bass was an American businessman, rancher and mountaineer. He was the owner of Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah and the first man to climb the "Seven Summits", the tallest mountain on each continent.
Romeo Roberto "Romi" Garduce, sometimes nicknamed as "Garduch," is a Filipino mountain climber, a scuba dive master, an environmentalist, writer, motivational speaker and works as an IT professional. He began climbing mountains for a cause in 1991 as a member of the UP Mountaineers. Aside from being a mountain climber and IT professional, he became one of the host for the GMA Network public affair shows Born to Be Wild and Pinoy Meets World. He also hosted the GMA News and Public Affairs special entitled Pito Para sa Pilipino with Richard Gutierrez.
Lincoln Ross Hall OAM was a veteran Australian mountain climber, adventurer, author and philanthropist. Lincoln was part of the first Australian expedition to climb Mount Everest in 1984, which successfully forged a new route. He reached the summit of the mountain on his second attempt in 2006, miraculously surviving the night at 8,700 m (28,543 ft) on descent, after his family was told he had died.
The Seven Second Summits are the second-highest mountains of each of the seven continents. All of these mountain peaks are separate peaks rather than a sub-peak of the continents' high point. The Seven Second Summits are considered a harder challenge than the traditional Seven Summits.
Jaime Viñals Massanet is a Guatemalan mountaineer, the first person from Central America and Caribbean region ever to climb the Earth's highest peak, Mount Everest, after reaching the summit together with the American Andy Lakpass and the Danish Asmus Noreslet on an expedition from New Zealand organized by Russell Brice, Since then, he became one of the few people to have reached the Seven Summits - the highest mountains of each of the seven (sub-)continents. also he has finished to climb the Seven Islands of the World.
Peter Edmund Hillary is a New Zealand mountaineer, philanthropist, and writer. He is the son of adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary, who, along with mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, completed the first successful ascent of Mount Everest. When Peter Hillary summited Everest in 1990, he and his father were the first father/son duo to achieve the feat. Hillary has achieved two summits of Everest, an 84-day trek across Antarctica to the South Pole, and an expedition guiding astronaut Neil Armstrong to land a small aircraft at the North Pole. He has climbed many of the world's major peaks, and on 19 June 2008, completed the Seven Summits, reaching the top of the highest mountains on all seven continents, when he summited Denali in Alaska.
The Volcanic Seven Summits are the highest volcanoes on each of the seven continents, just as the Seven Summits are the highest peaks on each of the seven continents. Summiting all seven is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first postulated as such in 1999.
Pat Falvey is an Irish high-altitude mountaineer, expedition leader, polar explorer, entrepreneur, author, corporate/personal trainer/coach, and motivational speaker. He was the first person to complete the Seven Summits (Bass) twice, with the summiting of Mount Everest reached from both the Tibetan (1996) and Nepalese sides (2004). He was expedition leader of the team that saw Clare O'Leary become the first Irish woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest (2004). Other extreme expeditions that he has made include walking to the South Pole, crossing South Georgia Island, and traversing the Greenland ice cap. He started his first business at 15 years of age and has since had businesses in property development, finance, construction, insurance, tourism, and film production. He has been a motivational speaker since the 1990s.
Christian Stangl is an Austrian alpine style mountaineer and mountain guide. He has become known as Skyrunner by numerous exceptionally fast ascents of high mountains. His major success was in 2013, when he became the first person to ascend the three highest mountains on all seven continents, the so-called Triple Seven Summits.
Colin Timothy O'Brady is an American professional endurance athlete, motivational speaker and adventurer. He is a former professional triathlete, representing the United States on the ITU Triathlon World Cup circuit, racing in 25 countries on six continents from 2009 to 2015.
Satyarup Siddhanta is a Bangalore-based Indian mountaineer. Satyarup became the youngest mountaineer in the world and the first from India to climb both the Seven Summits and Volcanic Seven Summits on 15 January 2019 at 10:10 pm Chile time. Guinness World Records approved this claim.
Dr Richard (Rick) Agnew is an Australian alpine mountaineer and high altitude sports aviator who has completed the Seven Summits climbing Mount Everest and many other peaks. He holds over 40 international and Australian speed, distance and height aviation records.
Vernon "Vern" Tejas is an American mountain climber and mountain guide. He is the current world record holder in the amount of time taken to summit all of the Seven Summits consecutively, having also previously held the same record. He was also the first person to solo summit several of the world's tallest peaks. Tejas was named one of the top fifty Alaskan athletes of the twentieth century by Sports Illustrated in 2002. In 2012, he was elected to the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. Tejas plays the harmonica and guitar. He currently resides in Greenwich Village, New York.
Neil Adrian Denis Laughton is a former army officer, entrepreneur and adventurer. He has completed the Explorers Grand Slam of climbing the highest mountains on all seven continents and reaching both the North and South Poles. He holds a number of records for his activities on land, sea and air.
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. 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 still is the first to reach the summits of Mount Everest, Lhotse and Makalu within 48 hours. In 2021, Purja, along with a team of nine other Nepalese mountaineers, completed the first winter ascent of K2.
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