Personal information | |
---|---|
Birth name | Edmund Viesturs |
Nationality | American |
Born | Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S. | June 22, 1959
Website | EdViesturs.com |
Climbing career | |
Type of climber | Mountaineer |
Known for | First American to climb all 14 eight-thousanders; 5th person to do so without Oxygen. |
Edmund Viesturs (born June 22, 1959) 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 eight-thousander mountains, and the 5th person to do so without supplemental oxygen. [1] Along with Apa Sherpa, he has summitted eight-thousanders on 21 occasions, including Mount Everest seven times.
Viesturs took part in the 1996 IMAX filming of Everest shortly after the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, which became the highest grossing documentary up to that time. [2] Thirteen days after the disaster, his team summited Everest accompanied by a film crew. [3] He also had a cameo in the year 2000 Hollywood blockbuster Vertical Limit . [2] Clive Standen plays Viesturs in the 2015 remake of Everest telling of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. [4]
Viesturs was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, of Latvian and German descent. He was raised in Rockford, Illinois, Viesturs moved to Seattle, Washington in 1977 to attend the University of Washington. It was here that he began his mountaineering career on the slopes of Mount Rainier. [5] Viesturs graduated from the University of Washington in 1981 with a BS in zoology [6] and worked as a guide for Rainier Mountaineering. He later obtained a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Washington State University.
His interest in mountaineering was sparked in high school by reading Maurice Herzog's account of the first climb of Annapurna, titled Annapurna . After climbing Kangchenjunga in 1989, Mount Everest in 1990 and K2 in 1992, Viesturs became an international mountain guide and was sponsored for full-time mountaineering. He served as a guide for Rob Hall's Adventure Consultants company during their 1995 Everest expedition. [7] Viesturs climbs with Finnish partner Veikka Gustafsson. [8]
In 1992, he and fellow American Scott Fischer brought down French climber Chantal Mauduit, suffering from exhaustion, after her summit of K2. [9] Viesturs was in the IMAX climbing team during the 1996 Everest Disaster. [10] He was featured in David Breashears' documentary film Everest (1998), and filming was delayed as a blizzard struck. The IMAX team postponed shooting and followed Viesturs up the mountain to aid the stranded climbers. The team ultimately decided to keep going, and summitted Everest on May 23, 1996. Viesturs was also featured in the Nova television documentary, Everest: The Death Zone (1998), in which he and Breashears climbed Everest to the summit, while undergoing physical and mental tests to record the effects of altitude on humans. [11]
In July 2003, Viesturs and a Kazakh team, headed by Denis Urubko, were instrumental in the rescue of French climber Jean-Christophe Lafaille from Broad Peak. Lafaille had developed high-altitude pulmonary edema and was unable to complete his descent. They coordinated a rescue attempt in the dark, and were able to get Lafaille safely off the mountain and helicoptered out for medical help. [12]
In 2005, Viesturs became the first American, and 12th climber in history, to summit all 14 mountains over 8,000 meters (collectively known as the eight-thousanders). He is the 5th climber in history to do it without using supplemental oxygen. [13] Viesturs has summitted Mount Everest seven times. [14] Research published in 2022 estimated that Viesturs was one of only three climbers in history to have stood on the "true" geographical summit of all the eight-thousanders and that Viesturs was the first to do so. [15]
Viesturs' more recent climbs have included Broad Peak (the world's 12th highest mountain) and Nanga Parbat (the world's ninth highest mountain) in 2003, Annapurna (the world's 10th highest mountain) in 2005, and Mount Everest (for the seventh time) in 2009. [16] On July 8, 2009 he led an expedition to Mount Rainier as part of the United Way Climb for the Community effort. UCLA coach Jim Mora, Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell took part in this charitable enterprise, summiting the 14,410 ft peak. Viesturs led an expedition to Antarctica, in January 2011, to climb its highest peak, Vinson Massif. In May 2021, he summitted Mount Rainier for the 216th time. [17] Viesturs now acts as a guide for RMI Expeditions. [18]
Viesturs was a cinematographer for the film Trio for One (2003), which told the story of French alpinist Jean-Christophe Lafaille's mission to climb Dhaulagiri, Nanga Parbat, and Broad Peak in a period of two months. [19] He acts as a design consultant for manufacturers of outdoor equipment, and is a representative of his adopted hometown's football team, the Seattle Seahawks. He is a member of the board of directors for Big City Mountaineers, an urban youth organization that offers wilderness experiences. Viesturs has also found a niche as a corporate motivational speaker. [17]
Viesturs is a recipient of the David A. Sowles Memorial Award (1992) [20] from the American Alpine Club. He is also the recipient of the Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Award (2001) [21] He was named National Geographic's Adventurer of the Year (2005). [22]
Annapurna is a mountain situated in the Annapurna mountain range of Gandaki Province, north-central Nepal. It is the 10th highest mountain in the world at 8,091 metres (26,545 ft) above sea level and is well known for the difficulty and danger involved in its ascent.
The eight-thousanders are the 14 mountains recognised 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, 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.
Nanga Parbat, known locally as Diamer, is the ninth-highest mountain on Earth and its summit is at 8,126 m (26,660 ft) above sea level. Lying immediately southeast of the northernmost bend of the Indus River in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Nanga Parbat is the westernmost major peak of the Himalayas, and thus in the traditional view of the Himalayas as bounded by the Indus and Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra rivers, it is the western anchor of the entire mountain range.
Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev was a Soviet and Kazakh mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above 8,000 m (26,247 ft)—without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8000 m.
Scott Eugene Fischer was an American mountaineer and mountain guide. He was renowned for ascending the world's highest mountains without supplemental oxygen. Fischer and Wally Berg were the first Americans to summit Lhotse, the world's fourth highest peak. Fischer, Charley Mace, and Ed Viesturs summitted K2 without supplemental oxygen. Fischer first climbed Mount Everest in 1994 and later died during the 1996 blizzard on Everest while descending from the peak.
Alan Hinkes OBE is an English Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. He is the first British mountaineer to claim all 14 Himalayan eight-thousanders, which he did on 30 May 2005.
Jean-Christophe Lafaille was a French climber noted for a number of difficult ascents in the Alps and Himalaya, and for what has been described as "perhaps the finest self-rescue ever performed in the Himalaya", when he was forced to descend the mile-high south face of Annapurna alone with a broken arm, after his climbing partner had been killed in a fall. He climbed eleven of the fourteen eight-thousanders, many of them alone or by previously unclimbed routes, but disappeared during a solo attempt to make the first winter ascent of Makalu, the world's fifth highest mountain.
Robert Edwin Hall was a New Zealand mountaineer. He was the head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition during which he, a fellow guide, and two clients died. A best-selling account of the expedition was given in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and the expedition has been dramatised in the 2015 film Everest. At the time of his death, Hall had just completed his fifth ascent to the summit of Everest, more at that time than any other non-Sherpa mountaineer.
Everest is a 70mm American documentary film, from MacGillivray Freeman Films, about the struggles involved in climbing Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak on Earth, located in the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet. It was released to IMAX theaters in March 1998 and became the highest-grossing film made in the IMAX format.
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.
Andrew James Lock OAM is an Australian mountaineer. He became the first, and still remains the only, Australian to climb all 14 "eight-thousanders" on 2 October 2009, and is the 18th person to ever complete this feat. He climbed 13 of the 14 without bottled oxygen, only using it on Mount Everest, which he has summited three times. He retired from eight-thousander climbing in 2012.
Iván Vallejo is a high-altitude mountaineer from Ecuador. On 1 May 2008, he became the 14th person to reach the summit of all 14 mountains above 8,000 meters, and the 7th without use of supplemental oxygen. He is the first, and still the only, Southern Hemisphere climber to complete all 14 eight-thousanders, without supplemental oxygen.
Silvio Mondinelli, is an Italian climber. In the year 2007, he became the 13th person to climb the 14 eight-thousanders. He is the 6th person to achieve that feat without using supplemental oxygen. He was 49 years old when he summited the last of the 14 summits, a task he started in 1993 and finished in 2007.
Ralf Dujmovits is a German mountaineer. In May 2009 he became the 16th person, and the first German, to climb the 14 eight-thousanders.
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 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.
Tunç Fındık is a Turkish professional climber, mountaineer, mountain guide, author, and motivational speaker.
Meherban Karim was a Pakistani mountaineer. He lost his life, along with 10 other mountaineers, in the 2008 K2 disaster, following an avalanche in what was to be one of the deadliest accidents in the history of K2 mountaineering. He summited several eight-thousanders: K2, Nanga Parbat, and Gasherbrum II. In the mountaineering community, he was known as "Karim The Dream" and "Karim Meherban".
Sajid Ali Sadpara ; is a Pakistani high-altitude mountaineer.