Eight thousander

The eight-thousanders are the 14 independentmountains on Earth that are more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) high above sea level. All eight-thousanders are located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia. Their summits are in the death zone.

The first recorded attempt on an eight-thousander was when Albert F. Mummery and J. Norman Collie tried to climb Pakistan's Nanga Parbat in 1895. The attempt was unsuccessful when Mummery and two Gurkhas, Ragobir and Goman Singh, were killed by an avalanche.

The first recorded successful ascent of an eight-thousander was by the French Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal, who reached the summit of Annapurna on June 3, 1950.

The first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders was the Italian Reinhold Messner, who completed this feat on 16 October 1986. In 1987, Polish climber Jerzy Kukuczka became the second person to accomplish this feat. Messner summitted each of the 14 peaks without the aid of supplemental oxygen. This feat was not repeated until nine years later by the Swiss Erhard Loretan in 1995. Phurba Tashi of Nepal has completed the most climbs of the eight-thousanders, with 30 ascents between 1998 and 2011.Juanito Oiarzabal has completed the second most, with a total of 25 ascents between 1985 and 2011. The alpinists with the highest number of winter ascents are Jerzy Kukuczka and the Italian Simone Moro, both with four peaks (K2 has never been summited in the winter).

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