They are ready to take on the big walls of the world and bravely conquer mountains in brutal conditions that most would shy away from.
Their remarkable bravery and discipline to climb the highest and most challenging peaks is admirable.
The following world-renowned mountain climbers have made history as a result of their towering achievements….
Words Alia Fawaz
Tenzing Norgay was a Nepali Indian Sherpa mountaineer who was 19 years old when he won a spot in the 1936 Everest Expedition.
Years later, in 1953 he, along with Edmund Hilary, became the first two people to stand atop Mt. Everest.
Maxime Chaya, Lebanon’s foremost sportsman and climber, was the first person in his country to climb Mount Everest in 2006.
He also became the sixth person in history to complete the Explorers Grand Slam (a rigorous challenge to ascend the seven summits – the highest mountain on every continent – while also skiing to the North and South Poles).
The second highest peak to be conquered after Everest was the challenging K2, which was reached by Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli on July 31,1954. While lauded for their feat, these two famous climbers are also noted for alleg
edly betraying their teammates Amir Mehdi and Walter Bonatti to ensure that they reached the summit first.
Reinhold Messner fell in love with the Alps and climbed his first summit at the tender age of five.
Messner holds the record for having climbed all fourteen 8,000-feet high peaks without supplemental oxygen.
Junko Tabei from Japan became the first woman to reach the summit of Mt.Everest in 1975.
During Tabei’s remarkable climb, she got buried in an avalanche and even lost consciousness for six minutes.
A beekeeper by profession, Edmund Hilary climbed mountains as a hobby – first, the slopes of his native New Zealand and then the Swiss Alps. He went on to conquer 11 peaks before deciding to climb Mt.
Everest in 1953 and making it to the top.
