Michael Moniz of Boulder, Colorado, is an American business executive and high-altitude mountaineer.
Michael Moniz of Boulder, Colorado, is an American business executive and high-altitude mountaineer.
Mike Moniz co-founded the online videogame company VR-1, Inc in 1993, was named president in 1996 and made CEO in 1999. [1] In a 1998 interview about the prospects of online gaming, Moniz stated that the revenue model of the industry needed to change in order to compete with games made for videogame consoles. [2] The company changed its name to Circadence in 2000 and Moniz remained CEO as the company transitioned into the WAN and network optimization space. [3] Under Moniz, the company was ranked first in the 2008 Deloitte Fast 50. [4] Moniz is also a Managing Director of the Paladin Capital Group, a multi-stage private equity firm which he co-founded in 2001. [5] His view on executive leadership in business was reported on by Debra Benton in her book How to Act Like a CEO. [6] He is on the Board of Directors for the Outdoor Foundation, [7] on the Advisory Board of the dZi Foundation, [8] the Board of Trustees for The Fund for Peace, [4] the Board of Directors for ClearCube, [9] and the Board of Directors for Northern Therapeutics. [10] Additionally he has twice been a nominee for the Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the year award. [4]
Moniz began mountain climbing in Colorado during the 1980s. In 2010 he set the speed record with his son Matt Moniz for the fastest summit of the highest 50 points in all 50 US states doing so in 43 days, 3 hours, 51 minutes and 9 seconds. [11] [12] In 2012 Moniz announced a Mount Everest summit bid and stated that before and after his climb, he would submit to a SPECT MRI scan to help research into the link between high altitude climbing and potential brain damage. The plan was to summit three different 8,000+ foot peaks within weeks of one another. [13] [14] That May, he successfully reached the summit of Mount Everest and Lhotse (the world's fourth highest mountain) within 24 hours of each other. [15] Upon this ascent, Moniz had climbed four of the Seven Summits. [16]
In 2014 Moniz again announced a spring expedition to attempt back-to-back-to-back summits of three 8,000-meter peaks, Cho Oyu, Everest, and Lhotse, in less than 15 days. [17] The team originally planned a first-ever ski descent of the Lhotse Couloir. In May Moniz successfully summited Cho Oyu. [18] The team changed their expedition plans after the April 16 Mount Everest avalanche claimed the lives of 16 Sherpa and shut down climbing on the south side, and instead sent a smaller group of climbers to summit Makalu. [19] [20]
The International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation or UIAA recognise 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 from neighbouring peaks. However, 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.
Alan Hinkes OBE is an English Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. He is the first and remains the only, British mountaineer to claim all 14 Himalayan eight-thousanders, which he did on 30 May 2005.
Juan Eusebio Oiarzabal Urteaga, commonly known as Juanito Oiarzabal, is a noted Spanish Basque mountaineer and has written four books on the subject. He was the sixth man to reach all 14 eight-thousander summits, and the third one in reaching them without supplementary oxygen. He was the first person to conquer the top 3 summits twice, and was the oldest climber to summit Kangchenjunga, at almost 53, until Carlos Soria Fontan made his successful attempt in 2014, when he was 75 years old. In 2004, he lost all his toes to frostbite after summiting K2.
Dan Mazur is a climber, trekker and expedition leader who has ascended nine of the world's highest summits, including Mount Everest and K2. In addition he is known for several high altitude mountain rescues: the 1991 rescue of Roman Giutashvili from Mount Everest, the rescue of Gary Ball from K2 in 1992, the rescue in 2006 of Australian climber Lincoln Hall from Mount Everest, and the rescue of British mountaineer Rick Allen from Broad Peak. In 2018, Daniel Mazur was awarded the Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal "for remarkable service in the conservation of culture and nature in mountainous regions."
Ryszard Pawłowski - Polish alpine and high-altitude climber and photographer. Member of The Explorers Club.
Vladyslav Terzyul, was a Ukrainian alpinist, one of the world's premier high-altitude climbers.
Simone Moro is an Italian alpinist. He made the first winter ascent of four of the eight-thousanders: Shishapangma in 2005, Makalu in 2009, Gasherbrum II in 2011, and Nanga Parbat in 2016., He also ascended Everest four times in 2000, 2002, 2006, 2010.
Andrew James Lock OAM is an Australian high-altitude 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 using bottled oxygen, only using it on Mount Everest, which he has summited twice. He retired from eight-thousander climbing in 2012.
Anna Czerwińska is a Polish mountaineer. She is known for being the oldest woman to Summit Mount Everest at the age of 50. She has also published several books about mountaineering.
Jean Troillet is a professional mountain climber.
Alex Găvan is a leading Romanian mountaineer specializing in Himalayan climbing of 8000 meter peaks without using supplemental oxygen or sherpa support in his ascents. By now Alex had successfully climbed six 8000 meter peaks. Since 2006, Alex runs a special project to climb all fourteen 8000 meter mountains in the world. At the present moment, he is the first Romanian climber to reach the summit of Gasherbrum I, Makalu and Shishapangma. His other three successful climbs of Cho Oyu, Manaslu and Broad Peak are second Romanian ascents. In 2006, with the successful ascent of Cho Oyu, Alex became at 24 years old the youngest Romanian ever to have climbed an eight thousand meter peak and was among the few who freely spoke about the Nangpa La shootings. He was awarded with "The 2007 Romanian Sportsman of the Year in High Altitude Mountaineering" by the Romanian Federation of Alpinism and Sport Climbing for the first Romanian ascent of Gasherbrum I.
Arjun Vajpai is the youngest Indian and the youngest in the world to climb Mount Everest back in 2010. He achieved this feat at the age of 16 years, 11 months and 18 days. He broke the record set by Krushnaa Patil of Maharashtra who climbed the summit at the age of 19. On 20 May 2011, he became the Youngest person ever to summit Lhotse, aged 17 years, 11 months and 16 days. Arjun also became the youngest to summit Manaslu on 4 October 2011. After 3 failed attempts on Makalu, he became the youngest Indian to summit it in his 4th attempt on 22 May 2016.
Adrian Ballinger is a certified IFMGA/AMGA mountain guide, certified through the American Mountain Guides Association. Ballinger has been guiding full-time for 15 years, and has led over 100 international climbing expeditions on five continents. Ballinger, along with Himalayan Experience's founder, Russell Brice, has been featured on the Discovery Channel's Everest: Beyond the Limit series. Ballinger worked for Himex until 2012. Ballinger founded Alpenglow Expeditions and has worked as a guide for it. Adrian is noted for pioneering the use of pre-acclimation for commercial expeditions as early as 2014, which can cut the amount of on-site time in half compared to a typical Everest summit bid expedition. He has also gone on climbs sponsored by the Eddie Bauer company. In 2016 and 2017 he went on Everest expeditions with Cory Richards, and in 2017 Adrian reached the summit from the Tibet/China/North route without using bottled oxygen.
Christine (Chris) Jensen Burke is known for her high altitude mountaineering achievements, aside from her other achievements in law and business.
Matt Moniz is an American mountaineer and speaker noted for his ascents of 8,000 meter peaks and several of the Seven Summits.
Azim Gheychisaz is an Iranian mountain climber and the summiter of all 14 Eight-thousanders. He is a member of Iranian national mountaineering team. By 2017, he has successfully completed ascent to all of 14 peaks over 8,000 m, he did all of those ascents without supplementary oxygen, without Hi-porters.
Samuli Mansikka, was a Finnish mountaineer, trekking guide and expedition leader. He was president of the Finnish Alpine Club and a member of The Explorers Club. He was best known for climbing the world's 8000m peaks, many of them solo and without supplementary oxygen. He died in a fall while descending from Annapurna, his tenth 8000m summit.
Nirmal "Nims" Purja is a Nepalese mountaineer and former Gurkha and soldier of the Special Boat Service (SBS), an elite special forces unit of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. He climbed all 14 of the world's peaks that are above 8,000-meters, in the record time of 6 months and 6 days and using bottled oxygen, beating the previous record of just under 8 years.
Hilaree Nelson is an American ski mountaineer and the first female to summit two 8000-meter peaks in one 24 hour push on 25 May 2012. On 30 September 2018, Nelson and partner Jim Morrison made the first ski descent of the "Dream Line", the Lhotse Couloir from the summit. Lhotse is the 4th-tallest mountain in the world and shares a saddle with Mount Everest. Nelson was named one of "The Most 25 Adventurous Women of the Past 25 Years" by Men's Journal, as well as being named as one of National Geographic’s 2018 Adventurers of the Year.