The Seven Summits as a climbing goal started to gain attention in the 1990s. Pat Morrow, a Canadian Mountaineer, was the first to climb all seven, and he did so in
1985. Before him, several climbers had sought and succeeded on five or six of the seven, and in fact by 1978, Reinhold Messner (one of the most influencial mountaineers
in history, and an essential architect of the Seven Sumits idea) succeded on six of the seven. Messner had actually climbed what he believed then to be the Seven Summits,
because there was some debate over the seventh due to opinions on whether Australia should be considered it's own continent by itself, or if the surrounding islands, including
New Guinea should be considered part of Australia. Carstenz Pyramid, a 16,023-foot rock tower on New Guinea that is now officially considered the seventh summit,
soars high above mainland Australia's highest peak, Kosciuszko (7310 feet). Some still proclaim there to be eight or even nine summits, whether or not they include Mont Blanc and
Kosciuszko.
By 1999, 60 climbers worldwide had completed the Seven Summits. With the
start of the next century, the numbers of climbers interested in attaining this goal rocketed up, and over the last few years the Seven Summits have received a lot of
press and are much more well-known as a popular climbing objective.
Strategy and Logical Progression
A logical order of attempting these mountains, based on their difficulty, would be:
- Kilimanjaro
- Mt. Elbrus
- Mt. Vinson or Aconcagua
- Carstenz Pyramid
- Denali
- Everest
Most people don't and can't just jump right through the Seven Summits, as each peak requires progressively more skill and experience. Though some climbers do in fact
start with Kilimanjaro and end with Everest, without doing much of anything in between peaks, this is definitely not the safest method nor the method with the greatest chance
of success. For example, there are quite a few skills needed to climb Denali - such as an intermediate level of snow and ice climbing ability and intimate knowledge with
glacier travel procedures - and these skills aren't necesarily picked up on any of the easier Seven Summits, so a Denali hopeful will commonly take a few intermediate-level climbing courses first
(such as a climb of Mt. Rainier, a course in waterfall ice climbing, a winter mountaineering course, and so on). Another example is Carstenz Pyramid, which requires the ability to climb
up to 5.8 (following) at high altitude (16,000 feet) - many climbers will choose to climb the Matterhorn first, for example, as this climb employs the same skills, but in a less extreme setting.
Check out our Seven Summits training course.
Give us a call at 360-671-1505 anytime to discuss your personalized strategy for training for and attaining the Seven Summits. You can also drop us an email at info@aai.cc
