Mountaineering by LorinBurte

This Victorian mountaineer and explorer made first ascents in the Alps, Andes (where he claimed Cotopaxi and Chimborazo), Canadian Rockies and in Greenland. He is most famous for his first ascent of the Matterhorn, the tragic consequences of which he depicted in haunting drawings.

This Italian mountaineer/explorer , a member of the royal house of Savoy summited various peaks in the Alps, Ruwenzori and the Karakoram. He led the first successful ascent of Mt. St. Elias in the Yukon and reached a height of 6,250 meters on K2 in 1909. The standard route up K2 climbs a spur named after him.

Climbing the seven summits (highest mountain on each continent) is an important mountaineering feat. Many climbers, however, refer instead to the eight summits, as Australia's Mt. Kosciuszko is not a significant challenge. What Oceanic mountain is the eighth summit, a difficult climb both in itself and because of its remoteness.

This important mountaineering tool has become almost ubiquitous as a personal and promotional item. As the commonplace ones are not made to mountain standards, however, lawyers have no doubt insisted to the makers that they emboss the trinket with the warning "Not for climbing."

Austrian mountaineer Herman Buhl accomplished one of the most insane feats in the history of mountaineering when he made the first ascent of this killer mountain solo and without bottled oxygen in 1953. On the way back from the summit he was forced to stand erect on a rock ledge for the entire night at 8,000m altitude in order to survive until the following morning and continue his descent. Before Buhl's success, at least 31 climbers had died on this peak.

This 21,778 ft. Tibetan mountain, sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and traditional Tibetan Bon religion, has reportedly never been climbed. Reinhold Messner refused and now Chinese authorities will not issue permits to attempt it. It is, however, a noted pilgrimage site, where religions pilgrims believe that circumambulating it is a holy ritual that will bring good fortune. Whether one goes clockwise or counter clockwise depends on one's religion.

The base to peak rise of this peak is the largest of any mountain that lies entirely above sea level. The mountain’s extreme cold, which can be minus 75 degrees F, with wind chill down to minus 118 F, can freeze a human in an instant. Despite this, an estimated 32,000 people have attempted it with a 50% success rate over the years.

At 19,341 ft. this peak is the tallest well known peak that can be trekked without technical mountaineering skills. It has been summited by people from 7 to 85 and on a magazine cover by model Christy Turlington. No one has explained, though, what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.

When this man, with Louis Lachenal, summited Annapurna in 1950, it marked the first ascent of an 8,000m peak. Incredibly, he lost his gloves near the summit and consequently his fingers from frostbite and gangrene.

This prolific mountaineer and author is the only American to climb all 14 8,000m peaks and has written No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks, K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain and other works. He made a cameo appearance as himself in the film Vertical Limit.

Ismoil Simoni Peak, tallest in Tajikistan and the Pamir range, was first climbed by a Soviet climber in 1933. Ismoil Simoni Peak bore this name from 1933 to 1962.

Now back to Everest. This leader of the first expedition to summit the mountain returned to Katmandu to find he had been made a Knight Bachelor of the British Empire. He himself climbed to 27,395 ft.

That successful expedition in 1953 used the southeast route to climb Everest. Between the Khumbu Icefall and the South Col, the route traverses the face of this fourth highest mountain in the world.

In the 1996 Everest expedition documented in Into Thin Air, this man was left for dead on the South Col. Then, according to Jon Krakauer 'for some unknowable reason a light went on in the reptilian core of (his) inanimate brain' and he walked into Camp IV.

My own so-called climbing only involves pedestrian (sorry) hikes up marked trails. One was an ascent of 1,476 feet up this well known mesa, the top of which is only 190 feet above sea level.