Ed Viesturs
Ed Viesturs

Ed Viesturs Goes Back to Annapurna
Second Attempt in Three Years

In his ongoing endeavor to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks—a personal quest reported live on MountainZone.com each year since 1997—Seattle climber Ed Viesturs once again has gone to the Himalaya to attempt one of the world's highest peaks. This season, Viesturs is making his second attempt in three years on Annapurna, at 8,091 meters the 10th highest peak in the world.

Photo
Patagonia

Ed Viesturs

Annapurna was first climbed in 1950 by a French expedition led by Maurice Herzog which included legendary climbers Louis Lachenal and Lionel Teray. Herzog's dramatic account in his book "Annapurna" inspired Viesturs at the age of 16 to take up mountaineering.

Climbing the highest mountains in the world is something that has appealed to the 42-year-old Viesturs for almost a decade.

"It's been a goal of mine since 1994. I decided I wanted to climb all 14 of the 8,000-meter peaks," he told MountainZone.com. "And I'm quite goal oriented; once I decide to do something or accomplish something, I get pretty stubborn and try to complete the goal. So I'm pretty determined to finish this. But I'm not going to do it for the sake of satisfying anybody else. This is something just for me."

At present, Viesturs has climbed 12 of the world's 14 8,000-meter peaks, with only Annapurna and 8,124-meter Nanga Parbat remaining. MountainZone.com readers will recall that Viesturs climbed two of the 8,000 meter giants in 1999--8,163-meter Manaslu and 8,167-meter Dhaulagiri. In 2000, he made an unsuccessful attempt on Annapurna, from the north side.

In 2001, he and long-time climbing partner Veikka Gustafsson once again attempted two of the world's highest peaks in a single season. They were successful on 8,027-meter Shishapangma, the 13th highest peak in the world, but their attempt on Nanga Parbat a few weeks later was thwarted by heavy snow that created dangerous avalanche conditions. (Gustafsson remained to try again, and reached the summit with a German expedition later in the season.)

Viesturs has climbed Mount Everest multiple times, including in 1996 when he climbed the mountain on cue for the IMAX film following the tragic events of May 10 that year, when Scott Fischer, Rob Hall and six other climbers perished in a storm.

Viesturs' last attempt on Annapurna, with Gustafsson, along with Michael Kennedy and Neal Biedleman, was made in spring 2000. But the expedition members quickly decided conditions on the north-side made the climb of their proposed route untenable.

"The objective danger was just off the scale," Viesturs recalled....

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