PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: mountaineering

George Mallory was a British explorer and mountaineer who was a leading member of early expeditions to Mount Everest. His disappearance on that mountain in 1924 became one of the most celebrated mysteries...

Reinhold Messner is a mountain climber and polar trekker who was renowned for his pioneering and difficult ascents of the world’s highest peaks. In 1978 he and Austrian Peter Habeler were the first to...

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is an Austrian mountain climber, one of the first women to climb all 14 of the world’s “eight-thousanders”—peaks 26,250 feet (8,000 metres) and higher—and the first woman to do so...

Rob Hall was a New Zealand mountaineering guide and entrepreneur who made five ascents of Earth’s highest peak, Mount Everest. He and other members of an expedition he was leading died in a blizzard near...

Oh Eun-Sun is a South Korean professional mountain climber whose claim to be the first woman to scale all 14 of the ‘eight-thousanders’—the world’s tallest peaks, over 26,250 feet (8,000 metres) high—was...

Apa Sherpa is a Nepali mountaineer and guide who set a record for most ascents of Mount Everest (21) that was later equaled by other Sherpas before being surpassed in 2018. Apa was raised in the small...

Edmund Hillary was a New Zealand mountain climber and Antarctic explorer who, with the Nepali-Indian mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest (29,035 feet [8,850 meters];...

Annie Smith Peck was an American mountain climber whose numerous ascents—often record-setting and some at an advanced age—made her a remarkable figure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Peck early...

Tenzing Norgay was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer who in 1953 became, with Edmund Hillary of New Zealand, the first person to set foot on the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak (approximately...

Edward Whymper was an English mountaineer and artist who was associated with the exploration of the Alps and was the first man to climb the Matterhorn (14,692 feet [4,478 metres]). Privately educated,...

Vegard Ulvang is a Norwegian Nordic skier known both for his successful racing career and for his many adventurous trips throughout the world. He skied across Greenland and climbed some of the highest...

Bachendri Pal is an Indian mountaineer who in 1984 became the first Indian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Pal was born into a rural working-class family in what is now Uttarakhand and was...

William Martin Conway, Baron Conway was a British mountain climber, explorer, and art historian whose expeditions ranged from Europe to South America and Asia. Conway began his climbing career in 1872...

John Hunt, Baron Hunt was a British army officer, mountaineer, and explorer who led the expedition on which Edmund (later Sir Edmund) Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mount Everest, the...

Albert Frederick Mummery was an English mountaineer who was the first to climb several Alpine peaks, including Dent du Requin, Col des Cortes, and Zmutt Ridge of the Matterhorn. Mummery was very sickly...

Luigi Amedeo Giuseppe Maria Ferdinando Francesco, duke d’Abruzzi was a Spanish mountaineer and explorer whose ventures ranged from Africa to the Arctic. The son of King Amadeus of Spain (who was also the...

Douglas Freshfield was a British mountaineer, explorer, geographer, and author who advocated the recognition of geography as an independent discipline in English universities (from 1884). On an expedition...

William Augustus Brevoort Coolidge was an American-born British historian and mountaineer who, in the course of about 1,750 ascents, made one of the first systematic explorations of the Swiss, French,...