Veikka Gustafsson

Eero Veikka Juhani Gustafsson, known as Veikka Gustafsson (born 14 January 1968) is a Finnish mountaineer. He was born in Espoo and he has three siblings, Elina, Erkki and Esa. His family bought a cabin in Tuupovaara and they moved there in 1976. In 1993 Veikka became the first Finnish person to have reached the top of Mount Everest. In the spring of 1997, he also became the first Finn to have reached the summit without the use of bottled oxygen. He is one of only 10 persons to have ascended all 14 eight-thousanders in the world without the use of supplemental oxygen.

8000 m+ mountains summited

He set his mind and body to conquer all the summits of the 14 mountains over 8000 metres, without the use of bottled oxygen. As of 2009-07-26 he reached his goal. The summits are as follow:

• Mount Everest (8850 m), spring 1993, with bottled oxygen
• Dhaulagiri (8167 m), fall 1993
• K2 (8611 m), summer 1994
• Lhotse (8501 m), spring 1995
• Makalu (8483 m), spring 1995
• Mount Everest (8850 m), spring 1997, without bottled oxygen
• Manaslu (8163 m), spring 1999
• Dhaulagiri (8167 m), spring 1999
• Shishapangma (8046 m), spring 2001
• Nanga Parbat (8125 m), summer 2001
• Mount Everest (8850 m), spring 2004
• Cho Oyu (8201 m), 2005-04-22
• Annapurna (8091 m), 2005-05-12
• Kanchenjunga (8586 m), 2006-05-14
• Gasherbrum II (8035 m), 2008-07-08
• Broad Peak (8047 m), 2008-07-31
• Gasherbrum I (8080 m), 2009-07-26

Other notable ascents/attempts

In the Alps:

• Frendo ridge
• Bonatti pillar
• Les Courtes, north wall (Swiss route)

In the Pamir:

• Pik Kommunisma (7495 m) and Pik Korsenevskaja (7105 m), summer 1993
• Pik Kommunisma (7495 m). Basecamp to basecamp in 36 h.

In the Himalayas:

• Mount Everest (8850 m), spring 1996. Reached 7500 m.
• Annapurna (8091 m), spring 2000. Failed to summit.
• Annapurna (8091 m), spring 2002. Reached 7300 m.
• Kangchenjunga (8 586 m), spring 2003. Reached 7100 m.

Elsewhere:

• Mount Vinson (5140m), winter 1996. The tallest mountain in Antarctica.
• Four first ascents on the Antarctica, winter 1997. Summited Mount Gardner (4587 m) and an unnamed peak, later unofficially named Mount Sisu (4300 m).

Notes

In 2008 Mid-July Veikka Gustafsson and Fernando Gonzalez-Rubio attempted Gasherbrum I (8068m), but the two were forced to abort the summit bid just before 100m due to bad weather (snowstorm; total whiteout)

Finally on 2009-07-26 Veikka Gustafsson prevailed in a second attempt, along with Japanese climber Kazuya Hiraide and Bulgarian climbers Nilolay Petkov, Doychin Boyanov, Boyan Petrov and Nikolay Valkov.

He previously climbed mountains with Ed Viesturs who in 2005 became the first American to climb all 14 of the world's 8000 meter peaks.