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 World famous for climbing without the aid of supplemental oxygen,
mountaineer Ed Viesturs ('87 D.V.M.) gave up a career as a veterinarian
to climb full time. He is pictured here at the summit of Manaslu in the
Himalayas in 1999. At 26,758 feet, it is the eighth highest mountain in
the world. Photo courtesy Ed Viesturs.
Drawn to the peaks
Growing up in Illinois, Ed Viesturs could only read about
mountain climbing, and he developed quite an appetite for the
adventure tales. Then one day during his senior year of high
school, a friend’s mother mentioned someone at college in
Washington, and “a light bulb went off,” he says. He enrolled at
the University of Washington sight unseen. He saw campus for first
time on the fall day in 1977 when his parents dropped him off. It
was a step into the unknown. But if he ever needed reminding of why
he chose the school, he had only to look out his dorm window to see
Mount Rainier. “It was like my Everest,” he says.
Viesturs didn’t know anyone in Seattle. But he was quick to find
the sporting goods stores. He’d pore over their reader boards,
hunting for announcements from people looking for climbing partners
or carpools. He’d call the numbers and say, “Hey I don’t know much
about climbing, but I’d like to learn. And I hope you have a
car.”
He experienced his first big climb that fall: Mount St. Helens,
one of the most popular peaks in the Cascades prior to its 1980
eruption. Its gentle slopes and 9,000-foot stature made it an easy
target, but it locked Viesturs into climbing for good.
“To have read about all these mountaineering expeditions and not
to have done one was so frustrating,” he says. The glaciated St.
Helens, which required crampons and ropes, was everything he had
hoped. “When I got to the summit, I thought, 'This is it. This is
what I’ve been seeking.'”
After St. Helens, Viesturs couldn’t wait to climb Rainier. So in
the winter of 1978, he and some friends decided to avoid the
warm-weather crowds and made several attempts at the mountain,
finally succeeding. The park rangers advised them to be prepared,
but in a manner that has served Viesturs throughout his climbing
career, the group was willing to turn around when things weren’t
going well. “I decided long ago that this has to be fun, but I want
it to be safe,” says Viesturs. “I do not want to die on a
climb.
 Viesturs ascending Nanga Parbat in Pakistan in 2003. He attempted the
same climb of the 26,658-foot peak in 2001, but turned around because
of weather and "gut instinct," he says. Photo courtesy Ed Viesturs.
“The art of mountaineering is managing the risk,” says the
climber, who has walked in the footsteps of friends who had died on
a climb a few days earlier. “You are either allowed to go up, or
the mountain just says, ‘Uh, uh, you’ve got to go home.’”
What makes mountaineering interesting for him is the
uncertainty. “If you knew you’d get to the summit, why bother?” he
says. What brings him the most respect from other climbers is his
willingness to turn around, even with the summit in sight.
The mountains of Washington are the perfect training ground for
mountaineers, says Viesturs. “They’re glaciated, they’re steep. The
weather sucks.”
“Climbing here makes you tough, strong, and capable,” he says.
“You can take that experience all over the world. You are used to
the hardship.”
After college, Viesturs enrolled at WSU, following through on
his plan to become a veterinarian. The challenge of the program and
the distance from the mountains really ate into his climbing time.
“I was so bummed,” he says. He consoled himself by spending summers
as a guide on Rainier. At the time, he didn’t have an inkling of
becoming a professional climber. He finished vet school—-and made
his first Everest expedition—-in 1987 and joined a practice, taking
time off to go on climbs. But that arrangement didn’t last beyond
1989. He had to choose between climbing and a veterinary career.
Climbing, of course, won. Still, Viesturs manages to use his
training in biology, medicine, and physiology when he’s in the
mountains, sometimes serving as medic for his team.
Viesturs attracts climbers and fans who are more interested in
his accomplishments and his lungs than his durable good looks and
affable personality. He is one of those rare climbers with both the
mental acuity to safely and efficiently climb a mountain and a
natural ability to thrive at high altitudes. In 1997 pulmonary
experts looked at Viesturs and determined he had a
greater-than-normal lung capacity, above-average endurance, and the
ability to manage on low oxygen. Simply put, “at high altitude, I’m
not as debilitated as most people,” he says.
In 1996, the season of the events described in Into Thin
Air, he came to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen in
pursuit of his goal to scale all 14 of the world’s peaks higher
than 8,000 meters. He became a hero on that expedition, helping to
save lives on the mountain, and gaining the summit as he had
hoped.
Last May, completing a successful assault on Annapurna, he
climbed into the record books as the first American to summit all
14 peaks without the aid of oxygen.
Today Viesturs and his wife, Paula, live with their two children
in the Seattle area, just a quick drive from the mountains. Twice
every summer the elite climber is the star attraction in a guided
climb up Rainier, an exercise he modestly calls “a good workout.”
It’s one he’s done nearly 200 times.
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