Pete Athans (March 1, 1957) is one of the world's foremost high-altitude mountaineers. He is best known for being one of only three non-sherpa (Dave Hahn and Ed Viesturs being the others) to summit Mount Everest seven times, and has appropriately earned the moniker "Mr. Everest".[1] He first attempted to climb Everest in 1985 via the West Ridge. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful, and further attempts in 1986, 1987 and 1989 were similarly fated. In 1990, on an expedition that included Scott Fischer and Wally Berg, he was at last successful.
Pete Athans is one of several western Himalayan guides who have adopted Nepal as a second home, and who have taken up the cause of the Sherpa people and their culture.
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In 1996 he was a key participant in the rescue of several climbers during the May 1996 Everest Disaster. For his efforts the American Alpine Club awarded him and his partner Todd Burleson and Anatoli Boukreev the David A. Sowles Memorial Award.[2]
The next year, Athans removed the body of a friend - Bruce Herrod, a South African climber who had perished just weeks after the 1996 disaster, from the climbing route high up on the mountain. He found Herrod hanging upside down by the climbing ropes that the photographer had been using to make his way down the dangerous Hillary Step section of the mountain, just below the summit. Four expeditions had climbed past his body before the removal of Herrod's body, which was cut loose and pushed over the edge.[3] Athans returned the camera and ice axe of the dead climber to his family. The last pictures Herrod took, shortly after 5PM the night he summitted, were of himself, on the summit, smiling that he had at last reached this goal.