Ed Viesturs
Encyclopedia
Edmund Viesturs, known as Ed Viesturs (born June 22, 1959) is one of the world's premier high-altitude mountaineer
Mountaineer
-Sports:*Mountaineering, the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains, also known as alpinism-University athletic teams and mascots:*Appalachian State Mountaineers, the athletic teams of Appalachian State University...

s. He is one of only 26 people and the only one from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to have climbed all eight-thousander
Eight-thousander
The eight-thousanders are the fourteen independent mountains on Earth that are more than high above sea level. They are all located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia....

 peaks. He has summited peaks of more than 8,000 meters for a total of 21 times, including Mount Everest
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...

 seven times, which makes him the third person with most total summits, behind Phurba Tashi
Phurba Tashi
Phurba Tashi Sherpa Mendewa is a famous Everest climber. Together with Juanito Oiarzabal, he is the person with most total ascents to eight-thousanders, with 28. http://www.alpenglowexpeditions.com/about-us/phurba-tashi These include 19 ascents on Mt. Everest, 5 on Cho Oyo, 2 over Manasulu, and one...

 Sherpa Mendewa and the Spanish climber Juanito Oiarzabal
Juanito Oiarzabal
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 fourth in reaching them without supplementary oxygen...

 who have reached 25 summits. He has reached all of the aforementionned summits without supplementary oxygen.

Early life

Born of Latvian and German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 descent in Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in the US state of Indiana and the county seat of Allen County. The population was 253,691 at the 2010 Census making it the 74th largest city in the United States and the second largest in Indiana...

 and raised in Rockford, Illinois
Rockford, Illinois
Rockford is a mid-sized city located on both banks of the Rock River in far northern Illinois. Often referred to as "The Forest City", Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County, Illinois, USA. As reported in the 2010 U.S. census, the city was home to 152,871 people, the third most populated...

, Viesturs moved to Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

 in 1977 to attend the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

. It was here that he began his mountaineering career on the slopes of Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier is a massive stratovolcano located southeast of Seattle in the state of Washington, United States. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc, with a summit elevation of . Mt. Rainier is considered one of the most...

. Viesturs graduated from the University of Washington in 1981 with a BS in zoology
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 and eventually became a guide for Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. He later obtained a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine degree from Washington State University
Washington State University
Washington State University is a public research university based in Pullman, Washington, in the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. Founded in 1890, WSU is the state's original and largest land-grant university...

.

Mountain climbing career

His interest in the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

 was sparked in high school by reading Maurice Herzog
Maurice Herzog
Maurice Herzog is a French mountaineer and sports administrator who was born in Lyon, France. He led the expedition that first climbed a peak over 8000m, Annapurna, in 1950, and reached the summit with Louis Lachenal. Upon his return, he wrote a best-selling book about the expedition...

's account of the first climb of Annapurna
Annapurna
Annapurna is a section of the Himalayas in north-central Nepal that includes Annapurna I, thirteen additional peaks over and 16 more over ....

. After climbing Kanchenjunga in 1989, Mount Everest
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...

 in 1990 and K2
K2
K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest...

 in 1992, Viesturs became an international mountain guide and was sponsored for full-time mountaineering. He served as a guide for Rob Hall
Rob Hall
Rob Hall , a native of New Zealand, was a mountaineer best known for being head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition in which he, a fellow guide, and two clients perished. A best-selling account of the expedition was given in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air...

's Adventure Consultants company during their 1995 Everest expedition.

Viesturs was in the IMAX climbing team during the 1996 Everest Disaster
1996 Everest Disaster
The 1996 Mount Everest disaster refers to the events of 10-11 May 1996, when eight people died on Mount Everest during summit attempts. In the entire season, fifteen people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest single year in Mount Everest's history...

. He was featured in the Everest
Everest (film)
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 Himalayan region of Nepal. It was released to IMAX theaters in 1998....

IMAX movie. 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's recent climbs have included Broad Peak
Broad Peak
Broad Peak , is the 12th highest mountain on Earth, with an elevation of 8,051 meters . The literal translation of "Broad Peak" to Faichan Kangri is not accepted among the Balti people.- Geography :...

 and Nanga Parbat
Nanga Parbat
Nanga Parbat is the ninth highest mountain on Earth, the second highest mountain in Pakistan and among the eight-thousanders with a summit elevation of 8,126 meters...

 in 2003, Mount Everest (seventh time) in 2009 and Annapurna in 2005.

Viesturs climbs with partner Veikka Gustafsson
Veikka Gustafsson
Eero Veikka Juhani Gustafsson, known as Veikka Gustafsson is a Finnish mountaineer. He was born in Espoo and he has three siblings, Elina, Erkki and Esa. His family bought a cabin in Tuupovaara and they moved there in 1976. In 1993 Veikka became the first Finnish person to have reached the top of...

.

In 2005, Viesturs became the 12th person to summit all eight-thousander
Eight-thousander
The eight-thousanders are the fourteen independent mountains on Earth that are more than high above sea level. They are all located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia....

 peaks. He was the first American to accomplish this feat.

On November 5, 2006, Viesturs completed his first marathon, the ING New York City Marathon, in 3:15:18.

On August 17, 2007, Viesturs summitted Mount Rainier for the 200th time.

On May 19, 2009, Viesturs summitted Mt. Everest for the 7th time.

Accomplishments

Viesturs is a recipient of the David A. Sowles Memorial Award
David A. Sowles Memorial Award
The David A. Sowles Memorial Award is the American Alpine Club's highest award for valour, bestowed at irregular intervals on mountaineers who have "distinguished themselves, with unselfish devotion at personal risk or sacrifice of a major objective, in going to the assistance of fellow climbers...

 from the American Alpine Club
American Alpine Club
The American Alpine Club, or AAC, was founded in 1902 by Charles Ernest Fay, and is the leading national organization in the United States devoted to mountaineering, climbing, and the multitude of issues facing climbers...

.

He is the first American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and 12th person overall, to summit all fourteen mountains over 8000 meters (collectively known as the eight-thousander
Eight-thousander
The eight-thousanders are the fourteen independent mountains on Earth that are more than high above sea level. They are all located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia....

s). He's the fifth climber to do it without bottled oxygen.

Viesturs also has summitted Mount Everest
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...

 seven times, a feat that has been surpassed by a number of Sherpas (Apa Sherpa in the lead with 21 summits), and two western climbers: Gheorghe Dijmarescu (9), and Dave Hahn
Dave Hahn
Dave Hahn is a professional mountain guide, ski patroller, journalist and lecturer. On May 20, 2011 he reached the summit of Mt. Everest for the 13th time - the most for a non-Sherpa climber. Among Hahn’s other notable accomplishments are his 27 summits of Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest mountain...

 (13).

Other work

He was a cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...

 in the 2003
2003 in film
The year 2003 in film involved some significant events. Releases of sequels took place with movies like The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Pokémon Heroes, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,...

 film Trio for One, which told the story of French alpinist Jean-Christophe Lafaille
Jean-Christophe Lafaille
Jean-Christophe Lafaille was a French mountaineer 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...

's mission to climb Dhaulagiri
Dhaulagiri
Dhaulagiri is Earth's seventh highest mountain at ; one of fourteen over eight thousand metres. Dhaulagiri was first climbed May 13, 1960 by a Swiss/Austrian expedition....

, Nanga Parbat
Nanga Parbat
Nanga Parbat is the ninth highest mountain on Earth, the second highest mountain in Pakistan and among the eight-thousanders with a summit elevation of 8,126 meters...

 and Broad Peak
Broad Peak
Broad Peak , is the 12th highest mountain on Earth, with an elevation of 8,051 meters . The literal translation of "Broad Peak" to Faichan Kangri is not accepted among the Balti people.- Geography :...

 in a period of two months.

Media

In October 2006, Viesturs published No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the Worlds 14 Highest Peaks, an autobiography that documented his 16-year journey summitting all fourteen eight-thousanders.

He made a cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...

 playing himself in the film Vertical Limit
Vertical Limit
Vertical Limit is a 2000 thriller action film directed by New Zealander Martin Campbell starring, among others, Chris O'Donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney and Scott Glenn...

.

He was a guest on the Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...

on December 7, 2006, and appeared on The Colbert Report on March 14, 2007, where he agreed to plant a Colbert Report flag on top of Mount Everest the next time he went. On July 2, 2009, he brought the Colbert Nation flag back from Everest's summit to the show.

He was featured on the cover of Outside Magazine's thirtieth anniversary issue in 2007.

In October 2009, Viesturs and David Roberts published the book K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain, which tells the story of six expeditions to the world's second tallest mountain.

External links

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