Mount Everest is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The international border between Nepal and China runs across its summit point.
James W. Whittaker, also known as Jim Whittaker, is an American mountaineer and mountain guide. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, on May 1, 1963 he became the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest as a member of the American Mount Everest Expedition led by Norman Dyhrenfurth, alongside the Sherpa Nawang Gombu. They ran out of oxygen but managed to reach the summit. Once there, Whittaker planted a U.S. flag at the top.
Scott Eugene Fischer was an American mountaineer and mountain guide. He was renowned for his ascents of the world's highest mountains made without the use of supplemental oxygen. Fischer and Wally Berg were the first Americans to summit Lhotse, the world's fourth highest peak. Fischer and Ed Viesturs were the first Americans to summit 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.
David Finlay Breashears is an American mountaineer, filmmaker, author, and motivational speaker. In 1985, he reached the summit of Mount Everest a second time, becoming the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest more than once. He is perhaps best known as the director and cinematographer of Everest (1998) — which became the highest-grossing IMAX documentary — and for his assistance in the rescue efforts during the 1996 Everest disaster, which occurred during the film's production.
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997 bestselling non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details the author's experience at the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm. The author's expedition was led by guide Rob Hall. Other groups were trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency, Mountain Madness, was perceived as a competitor to Hall's agency, Adventure Consultants.
Edmund Viesturs is a high-altitude mountaineer and corporate speaker. He is the only American to have climbed all 14 of the world's eight-thousander mountain peaks, and the fifth person to do so without using supplemental oxygen. Along with Apa Sherpa, he has summitted peaks of over 8,000 meters on 21 occasions, including Mount Everest seven times; only four other climbers, Phurba Tashi Sherpa Mendewa, Juanito Oiarzabal, Namgyal Sherpa, and Ang Dorje Sherpa, have more high-altitude ascents.
Peter Athans is one of the world's foremost high-altitude mountaineers. In 2008 he was celebrated for summiting Mount Everest seven times, and was given the moniker "Mr. Everest". His first attempt to climb Everest in 1985 via the West Ridge, and further attempts in 1986, 1987, and 1989 were unsuccessful, but he succeeded in summitting in 1990 as part of an expedition that included Scott Fischer and Wally Berg.
Robert Edwin Hall was a New Zealand mountaineer. He was the head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition in which he died, along with a fellow guide and two clients. 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 summit of Everest, more at that time than any other non-Sherpa mountaineer.
Pem Dorjee is a Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer born in 1982 in Chyangba, a small, remote village south of Mount Everest in Khumbu, Nepal.
Nawang Gombu was a Nepali-Indian mountaineer of Nepalese Sherpa origin.
Michael Groom is an Australian mountain climber. In 1995, Groom became the fourth person ever to summit the four highest mountains in the world without the aid of bottled oxygen. He proceeded to climb the fifth-highest, Makalu, in 1999. In 1987 he lost the front third of his feet to frostbite descending from his successful summit of Kangchenjunga. Despite this, he later managed to summit Mount Everest in 1993 and again in 1996. He acted as a guide for Adventure Consultants during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, which he survived and subsequently described in his 1997 autobiography. In the 2015 film Everest, Groom was portrayed by actor Tom Wright.
The 1996 Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10–11 May 1996, when eight people caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest during attempts to descend from the summit. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest season on Mount Everest at the time and the third deadliest behind the 16 fatalities of the 2014 Mount Everest avalanche and the 22 deaths resulting from avalanches caused by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake. The 1996 disaster gained wide publicity and raised questions about the commercialization of Everest.
David Allen Hahn is an American professional mountain guide, ski patroller, journalist and lecturer. In May 2013, he reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 15th time - the most for a non-Sherpa climber, according to Outside Magazine contributor and climber Alan Arnette. Among Hahn’s other notable accomplishments are his 35 summits of Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest mountain. He has reached the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest peak, 21 times over the course of 30 expeditions.
Garrett Madison is an American mountaineer and guide. Madison began guiding professionally in 1999 on Mount Rainier, and his company, Madison Mountaineering, specializes in climbs on Mount Everest and other high altitude peaks, operates on the highest peaks on all seven continents, and also provides training programs and summit climbs in Washington State. On May 19–20, 2011, he reached the summit of Mt Everest on his fourth successful attempt as expedition leader and guide for Alpine Ascents International, and reached the summit of Lhotse 21 hours later as guide to climber Tom Halliday. Also on the expedition was guide Michael Horst who made both summits as well in under a 24-hour period, a few days earlier. This was the first time that both Everest and Lhotse were summited together in less than 24 hours, and Madison repeated the "double header" feat again in 2013, the only person to do so twice. In 2014, Madison led the first successfully guided ascent of K2, reaching the summit with two climbers and three Sherpas on July 27, 2014. On 22 July 2018, Madison successfully led a team of 24 to the summit of K2 and became the first American to summit K2 more than once. Madison also regularly guides many "7 Summits" expeditions such as Carstensz Pyramid, Aconcagua, Vinson Massif, Kilimanjaro and Elbrus during the year.
Ang Dorje (Chhuldim) Sherpa is a Nepali sherpa mountaineering guide, climber and porter from Pangboche, Nepal, who has climbed to the summit of Mount Everest 20 times. He was the climbing Sirdar for Rob Hall's Adventure Consultants expedition to Everest in spring 1996, when a freak storm led to the deaths of eight climbers from several expeditions, considered one of the worst disasters in the history of Everest mountaineering.
Rhys Jones is an English mountaineer and was the youngest person to climb the Seven Summits, and reached the summit of Mount Everest.
Lydia Bradey is a New Zealand mountaineer. She is known for becoming the first woman to summit Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen in 1988. She has gone on to summit Mount Everest at least four more times in 2008, 2013, 2016, and 2018.
Mountain Madness is a Seattle-based mountaineering and trekking company. The company specializes in mountain adventure travel and has a training school for mountain and rock climbing.
