SEATTLE – As he hit the peak of his career as perhaps America’s most accomplished mountain climber, Ed Viesturs decided to retire.When he reached the summit of 26,545-foot Annapurna in Nepal on May 12 ...

The tumultuous 2023 Himalayan climbing season was marked by both triumph and tragedy. More climbers than ever set out for Mount Everest’s summit, and 17 died on the mountain, the most ever in a season ...

When Ed Viesturs climbed Mount Everest in 2009, the world-renowned mountaineer and University of Washington graduate thought it could be his last trip to the world’s highest peak. So he made sure he ...

Ed Viesturs is the Reinhold Messner of American climbing. In 2005, he completed Endeavor 8000, his climbs without supplemental oxygen of the world’s 14 peaks above 8,000 meters. Messner, the great ...

In Part 1 of our interview series with American mountaineer Ed Viesturs, we discussed the Guinness World Record folks stripping the great Reinhold Messner of his long-held title of first to summit all ...

Ed Viesturs has done a lot of things I haven’t done and almost certainly never will. Most notably, he’s climbed Mount Everest six times and summited all 14 8,000-meter peaks (besting me by six and 14, ...

Photograph courtesy of First Ascent / Jake Norton. See photographs from Viesturs Everest expedition. Tomorrow we will officially announce the sixth annual Adventurers of the Year, each honored for ...

Happy Earth Day, one day late. In honor of, we bring you a special commemorative green edition of the Big Gore-Tex Outdoors Mailbag, which is now in the midst of surviving its second — or is it third?

KATMANDU, Nepal ” One of the United States’ most accomplished climbers is coming down from the death zone. After Ed Viesturs last week became the first American to climb the world’s tallest 14 peaks ” ...

Text by Mike Benoist; Photograph courtesy of Eddie Bauer / Jake Norton On March 25, Ed Viesturs, America’s preeminent high altitude mountaineer, will officially un-retire. The man who once told ...