Eight-thousander

Cho Oyu, Lhotse, Makalu and Mount Everest as seen from the International Space Station

The eight-thousanders are the 14 independent mountains on Earth that are more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) high above sea level. They are all located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia.

The first recorded attempt on an eight-thousander took place on the expedition by Albert F. Mummery, and J. Norman Collie to Nanga Parbat in the territory of Kashmir (in present day Pakistan Administered Kashmir) in 1895; this attempt failed as Mummery and two Gurkhas, Ragobir and Goman Singh, were killed by an avalanche.

The first recorded successful ascent of an eight-thousander was by 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 Reinhold Messner. He completed this task on October 16, 1986. A year later, in 1987, Jerzy Kukuczka became the second climber to accomplish this feat. Messner had summitted each of the 14 peaks without the aid of supplemental oxygen. This feat was not repeated until nine years later by Erhard Loretan in 1995. As of 2011, a total of 26 people have summitted all 14 peaks undisputedly. This is an extremely hazardous feat; at least four people have died while in pursuit of this goal. Phurba Tashi of Nepal has completed the most climbs of the eight-thousanders, with 26 ascents between 1998 and 2011. Juanito Oiarzabal has completed the second most, with a total of 25 times from 1985 to 2011.

The countries with the highest number of climbers that have climbed all 14 eight-thousanders are Italy and South Korea, with 4 climbers each, and Kazakhstan, Poland and Spain with 3 climbers each. The first woman who claimed to have summited all 14 eight-thousanders was Oh Eun-Sun of South Korea, stating she completed the set by summiting Annapurna on April 27, 2010. Doubts about this claim have been raised by several parties and an inquiry by the Korean Alpine Federation (KAF) declared her summit claim for Kangchenjunga 2009 "unlikely". Their doubts add to those previously brought forward by rival Edurne Pasaban, which moved Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley in the spring of 2010 to tag the summit as "disputed". Later in 2010, Edurne Pasaban was declared the first woman to climb all 14 eight-thousanders.

In August 2011, Austrian climber Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner became the first woman to climb the 14 eight-thousanders without the use of supplementary oxygen.

List of eight-thousanders

Peak	Height	Location	First ascent	First ascensionist(s)	First ascent in winter	First ascensionist(s) in winter	Ascents	Deaths	Death rate	Death rate before 1990*	Death rate since 1990*
Everest	8848 m (29,029 ft)	China/Nepal	29 May 1953	Edmund Hillary Tenzing Norgay	17 Feb 1980	Krzysztof Wielicki Leszek Cichy	3684	210	5.70%	37%	4.4%
K2	8611 m (28,251 ft)	China/Pakistan	31 Jul 1954	Achille Compagnoni Lino Lacedelli			284	66	23.24%	41%	19.7%
Kangchenjunga	8586 m (28,169 ft)	Nepal/India	25 May 1955	George Band Joe Brown	11 Jan 1986	Krzysztof Wielicki Jerzy Kukuczka	209	40	21.4%	21%	22%
Lhotse	8516 m (27,940 ft)	China/Nepal	18 May 1956	Fritz Luchsinger Ernst Reiss	31 Dec 1988	Krzysztof Wielicki	221	11	3.43%	14%	2%
Makalu	8485 m (27,838 ft)	China/Nepal	15 May 1955	Jean Couzy Lionel Terray	09 Feb 2009	Simone Moro Denis Urubko	234	26	11.11%	16%	8.5%
Cho Oyu	8201 m (26,906 ft)	China/Nepal	19 Oct 1954	Joseph Joechler Pasang Dawa Lama Herbert Tichy	12 Feb 1985	Maciej Berbeka Maciej Pawlikowski	2668	39	1.46%
Dhaulagiri I	8167 m (26,795 ft)	Nepal	13 May 1960	Kurt Diemberger Peter Diener Nawang Dorje Nima Dorje Ernst Forrer Albin Schelbert	21 Jan 1985	Andrzej Czok Jerzy Kukuczka	358	58	16.20%	31%	11%
Manaslu	8163 m (26,781 ft)	Nepal	09 May 1956	Toshio Imanishi Gyalzen Norbu	14 Jan 1984	Maciej Berbeka Ryszard Gajewski	297	53	17.85%	35.16%	13.42%
Nanga Parbat	8126 m (26,660 ft)	Pakistan	03 Jul 1953	Hermann Buhl			287	64	22.30%	77%	5.5%
Annapurna I	8091 m (26,545 ft)	Nepal	03 Jun 1950	Maurice Herzog Louis Lachenal	03 Feb 1987	Jerzy Kukuczka Artur Hajzer	153	58	38%	66%	19.7%
Gasherbrum I (also known as Hidden Peak)	8080 m (26,444 ft)	China/Pakistan	05 Jul 1958	Andrew Kauffman Pete Schoening			265	25	9.43%	15.5%	8.75%
Broad Peak	8051 m (26,414 ft)	China/Pakistan	09 Jun 1957	Fritz Wintersteller Marcus Schmuck Kurt Diemberger Hermann Buhl			359	19	5.29%	5%	8.6%
Gasherbrum II	8034 m (26,358 ft)	China/Pakistan	07 Jul 1956	Fritz Moravec Josef Larch Hans Willenpart	02 Feb 2011	Simone Moro Denis Urubko Cory Richards	836	19	2.27%	7.8%	0.44%
Shishapangma	8027 m (26,335 ft)	China	2 May 1964	Hsu Ching Chang Chun-yen Wang Fuzhou Chen San Cheng Tien-liang Wu Tsung-yue Sodnam Doji Migmar Trashi Doji Yonten	14 Jan 2005	Piotr Morawski Simone Moro	274	23	8.39%	2%	16.8%

^* As of September 2003, data from Chinese National Geography, august 2006, page 77 (the column "first ascensionist(s) in winter" has different sources).

Verified climbers who have reached the summit of all 14 eight-thousanders

Field 0₂ lists people who have peaked all 14 without bottled oxygen.

Order accomplished	All without O2 (order)	Name	Period	born	at age	Nationality
1	1	Reinhold Messner	1970–1986	1944	42	Italian
2		Jerzy Kukuczka	1979–1987	1948	39	Polish
3	2	Erhard Loretan	1982–1995	1959	36	Swiss
4		Carlos Carsolio	1985–1996	1962	33	Mexican
5		Krzysztof Wielicki	1980–1996	1950	46	Polish
6	3	Juanito Oiarzabal	1985–1999	1956	43	Spanish
7		Sergio Martini	1983–2000	1949	51	Italian
8		Park Young-Seok	1993–2001	1963	38	Korean
9		Um Hong-Gil	1988–2001	1960	40	Korean
10	4	Alberto Iñurrategi	1991-2002	1968	33	Spanish
11		Han Wang-Yong	1994–2003	1966	37	Korean
12	5	Ed Viesturs	1989–2005	1959	46	American
13	6	Silvio Mondinelli	1993–2007	1958	49	Italian
14	7	Ivan Vallejo	1997–2008	1959	49	Ecuador
15	8	Denis Urubko	2000–2009	1973	35	Kazakhstan
16		Ralf Dujmovits	1990–2009	1961	47	German
17	9	Veikka Gustafsson	1993–2009	1968	41	Finnish
18		Andrew Lock	1993–2009	1961	48	Australian
19	10	João Garcia	1993–2010	1967	43	Portuguese
20		Piotr Pustelnik	1990–2010	1951	58	Polish
21		Edurne Pasaban	2001–2010	1973	36	Spanish
22		Abele Blanc	1992–2011	1954	56	Italian
23		Mingma Sherpa	2000–2011	1978	33	Nepal
24	11	Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner	1998–2011	1970	40	Austria
25		Vassily Pivtsov	2001–2011	1975	36	Kazakhstan
26	12	Maxut Zhumayev	2001–2011	1977	34	Kazakhstan
27		Kim Jae-Soo	2000–2011	1961	50	Korean

Disputed

Disputes occur when not enough evidence was provided to claim the climb up to the highest peak.

Name	Period	born	at age	Nationality
Fausto De Stefani (Lhotse 1997)	1983–1998	1952	46	Italy
Alan Hinkes (Cho Oyu 1990)	1987–2005	1954	53	British
Vladislav Terzyul (Shishapangma 2000)	1993-2002 (deceased)	1953	49	Ukrainian
Oh Eun-Sun (Kangchenjunga 2009)	1997–2010	1966	44	Korean

Flight over Khumbu-region; six eight-thousanders and some seven-thousanders (three identified) are visible

Gallery

• 

  Everest

• 

  K2

• 

  Kangchenjunga

• 

  Lhotse

• 

  Makalu

• 

  Cho Oyu

• 

  Dhaulagiri

• 

  Manaslu

• 

  Nanga Parbat

• 

  Annapurna

• 

  Gasherbrum I

• 

  Broad Peak

• 

  Gasherbrum II

• 

  Shishapangma

See also

• List of highest mountains
• List of deaths on eight-thousanders
• Seven Summits
• Seven Second Summits
• Volcanic Seven Summits
• Three Poles Challenge
• Explorers Grand Slam, also known as The Adventurers Grand Slam

External links

• Site dedicated to the 8000m peaks and mountaineers
• Pictures of 8'000 meter peaks
• Map in GeoFinder.ch showing the locations of the main summits