grabbs146 wrote:Who's Ed Viesters and Lou Whittaker??? What's Fitzroy?
They are 2 of the most well known American climbers.
Ed Viesturs
From a boy who grew up on the flatlands of Illinois, Ed has established himself as America’s premier high-altitude mountaineer. He’s the first American and the fifth person to summit all 14 of the world's 8000-meter peaks—all without the use of supplemental oxygen. He moved to Seattle in 1977 to study at the University of Washington and then at Washington State University, where he received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. He began guiding on Rainier with RMI in 1982 and has participated in 30 Himalayan expeditions since 1987.
Ed's first book, No Shortcuts To The Top, was a national bestseller. Ed will be signing copies of his next book K2: Life and Death on the World’s Deadliest Mountain, that will be released in October 2009, from Broadway Books.
Jim Whittaker
He was the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest. He summited on May 1, 1963 with the Sherpa Nawang Gombu (a nephew of Tenzing Norgay). They ran out of oxygen but managed to reach the summit. Once there, Whittaker planted a US flag at the top.
He led the 1990 Everest Peace Climb that brought together climbers from the United States, USSR and China. In addition to putting more than a dozen climbers on the summit, the expedition hauled off a large amount of trash left on the mountain by previous expeditions.
In 1999 Whittaker released his autobiography, A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond.
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:50 pm