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 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 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 an altitude known as the death zone.
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.
Juan Eusebio Oiarzabal Urteaga, commonly known as Juanito Oiarzabal, is a noted Spanish Basque mountaineer. He has written four books on the subject. He was the 6th man to reach all 14 eight-thousander summits, and the third to do so without supplemental oxygen. He was the first person to climb the top three summits twice and the oldest climber to summit Kangchenjunga, at almost 53, until Carlos Fontan did so in 2014, at 75 years old. In 2004, he lost all his toes to frostbite after summiting K2.
Gokyo Peak is a 5,357 m (17,575 ft)-high peak in the Khumbu region of the Nepal Himalayas. It is located on the west side of the Ngozumpa glacier, which is the largest glacier in Nepal and reputed to be the largest in the whole Himalayas. Gokyo, at the base of Gokyo Ri, is a small hamlet of a few stone houses and one of the highest settlements in the world. From the summit of Gokyo Ri it is possible to see four 8,000-metre peaks: Mount Everest, Lhotse, Makalu and Cho Oyu. The Gokyo Lakes are in the area. Other mountains, such as Pumori and Nuptse are also visible from the top, along with five tranquil glacier lakes named together as gokyo lakes. The Gokyo-Ri summit is a 3-hour hike from the nearest village.
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.
Anna Czerwińska was a Polish climber. She is known for being the then-oldest woman to summit Mount Everest, doing so at the age of 50. She also published several books about mountaineering.
Arjun Vajpai (born 9 June 1993 is an Indian mountaineer, who became the world's youngest mountaineer to summit six peaks over 8,000 meters in the year 2018.
Adrian Ballinger is a British-American certified IFMGA/AMGA mountain guide, certified through the American Mountain Guides Association and a sponsored climber and skier. Ballinger is the founder and CEO of Alpenglow Expeditions, and has been guiding full-time for 25 years. He has led over 150 international climbing expeditions on six continents, and made 18 successful summits of 8,000m peaks. He is known for pioneering the use of pre-acclimatization for commercial expeditions as early as 2012, which can cut the amount of time typically spent on an expedition in half. Adrian is the only American to have made three successful ski descents of 8,000m peaks, including the first ski descent of Manaslu from its summit. He is also the fourth American to have summited both Mount Everest and K2 without the use of supplemental oxygen.
Matt Moniz is an American mountaineer and speaker noted for his ascents of 8,000 meter peaks and several of the Seven Summits.
Martin Walter Schmidt, known as Marty, was a New Zealand-American mountaineer, guide and adventurer.
Neal Jay Beidleman is an American mountaineer and climbing guide, known for surviving the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. After the disaster, Beidleman's stories were featured on the U.S. television news show Nightline and PBS's Frontline, in which his decisions and patience were credited for likely saving the lives of himself and several other less-experienced climbers along the Kangshung Face. Beidleman has reached the summit of eight-thousanders five times, Makalu (1x), Cho Oyu (1x) and Mount Everest (3x).
Ashish Mane is a professional climber from India. He has scaled Mount Everest (2012), Lhotse (2013), Makalu (2014), Manaslu (2017), and Kanchenjunga (2019). Ashish is the only climber from Maharashtra as of now, to ascend five of the fourteen eight-thousander peaks over 8,000 meters (26,250ft) above sea level. In 2016, he attempted to climb Dhaulagiri, but due to technical reasons he had to quit the expedition.
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.
Shehroze Kashif is a Pakistani mountaineer who became the youngest climber in the world to summit K2 on 27 July 2021. He became the youngest Pakistani to summit Mount Everest on 11 May 2021. After the successful summit of Mount Everest, Sports Board Punjab made him the youth ambassador of Punjab, Pakistan. He summited Broad Peak at the age of 17, after which he was called 'The Broad Boy'.
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.
Dawa Ongju Sherpa- Nepali: दावा ओङ्जु शेर्पा is a Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer. He has climbed 13 of the 14 highest peaks in the world.
Naila Kiani ; is the leading Pakistani female high altitude mountaineer. Kiani is the first Pakistani woman & overall third Pakistani to climb 11 of the 14 highest peaks above 8,000-metres. She is one of the ten mountaineers worldwide and the only Pakistani who climbed multiple above 8000m in less than six months. Kiani is also the fastest Pakistani to climb all eleven 8,000-metre peaks in less than three years.
Tenjen Sherpa, also known as Tenjen Lama Sherpa, was a Nepalese mountaineer who climbed all 14 eight-thousander together with Kristin Harila in 92 days. He went missing after an avalanche hit on Shishapangma on 7 October 2023. He was declared dead by Chinese authorities on 8 October 2023.