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Born 22 June 1959
The tie, stated precisely: Ed Viesturs was born in Fort Wayne on 22 June 1959 and raised in Rockford, Illinois. Fort Wayne claims the birth only. He trained as a veterinarian at Washington State University, worked in that profession near Seattle, and left it for the mountains — guiding on Mount Rainier and climbing in the Himalaya until the climbing was the career.
Between 1989 and 2005, in a project he called Endeavor 8000, Viesturs climbed all fourteen of the world's peaks above 8,000 meters — Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu, Nanga Parbat, Annapurna, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Shishapangma — every one without supplemental oxygen. He finished on Annapurna in May 2005, the first American to complete the fourteen and one of only a handful of climbers anywhere to do it all on natural air. He summited Everest seven times. In May 1996 he was on Everest with the IMAX film expedition in the season of the disaster that killed eight climbers, and his team's cameras and conduct that spring became part of the film Everest (1998). His rule of the mountains is the most quoted sentence in modern climbing: getting to the top is optional; getting down is mandatory. His memoir No Shortcuts to the Top appeared in 2006.
Sources:
- Wikipedia, "Ed Viesturs" — the Fort Wayne birth and Rockford upbringing; the fourteen-peak record and its oxygen condition.
- Published biographical profiles of Viesturs (publisher and speaker records) — the 22 June 1959 Fort Wayne birth; the Annapurna completion in May 2005; the seven Everest summits; the IMAX season of 1996.