Eight-thousander

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

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

Graph of the 30 highest peaks with more than 500 m prominence

The eight-thousanders are the 14 independent^[1] mountains 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.^[2]

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.^[3]

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. Kukuczka is also the man who established the most (9) new routes on the main eight-thousanders. 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.^[4] Juanito Oiarzabal has completed the second most, with a total of 25 ascents between 1985 and 2011.^[5] The Italian Simone Moro is the only mountaineer to have made the first winter ascent of four of the eight-thousanders, Jerzy Kukuczka made four winter ascents as well, but one of them was a repetition (K2 has never been summited in the winter).^[6]

The first woman who summited all 14 eight-thousanders with no disputed climbing was the Spanish Edurne Pasaban, in 2010.^[7] In August 2011, Austrian climber Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner became the first woman to climb the 14 eight-thousanders without the use of supplementary oxygen.^[8][9]

The first couple and team who summited all 14 eight-thousanders together were the Italians Nives Meroi (second woman without supplementary oxygen), and her husband Romano Benet in 2017. They climbed in alpine style, without the use of supplementary oxygen.^[10]

The country with the highest number of climbers that have climbed all 14 eight-thousanders is Italy with seven climbers, followed by Spain with six climbers and South Korea with five climbers. Kazakhstan and Poland have three climbers each that completed the "Crown of the Himalaya".

List of eight-thousanders

Peak	Height[11]	Location[11]	First ascent[11]	First summiter(s)[11]	First ascent in winter	First summiter(s) in winter	Ascents[12]	Deaths[12]	Death rate[12]	Death rate before 1990[13] (graph)	Death rate 1990–2003[13] (graph, change)
Everest	8848 m 29,029 ft	Nepal China	29 May 1953	Edmund Hillary Tenzing Norgay	17 Feb 1980	Krzysztof Wielicki Leszek Cichy	5656	223	4.0%	37%	4.4%
K2	8611 m 28,251 ft	Pakistan China[14][15][16][17][18][19]	31 Jul 1954	Achille Compagnoni Lino Lacedelli			306	81	29.5%	41%	19.7%
Kangchenjunga	8586 m 28,169 ft	Nepal India[20]	25 May 1955	George Band Joe Brown	11 Jan 1986	Krzysztof Wielicki Jerzy Kukuczka	283	40	14.5%	21%	22.0%
Lhotse	8516 m 27,940 ft	Nepal China	18 May 1956	Fritz Luchsinger Ernst Reiss	31 Dec 1988	Krzysztof Wielicki	461	13	2.8%	14%	2.0%
Makalu	8485 m 27,838 ft	Nepal China	15 May 1955	Jean Couzy Lionel Terray	9 Feb 2009	Simone Moro Denis Urubko	361	31	8.9%	16%	8.5%
Cho Oyu	8201 m 26,906 ft	Nepal China	19 Oct 1954	Joseph Joechler Pasang Dawa Lama Herbert Tichy	12 Feb 1985	Maciej Berbeka Maciej Pawlikowski	3138	44	1.4%
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	448	69	15.7%	31%	11.0%
Manaslu	8163 m 26,781 ft	Nepal	9 May 1956	Toshio Imanishi Gyalzen Norbu	12 Jan 1984	Maciej Berbeka Ryszard Gajewski	661	65	9.9%	35%	13.4%
Nanga Parbat	8126 m 26,660 ft	Pakistan	3 Jul 1953	Hermann Buhl	26 Feb 2016	Simone Moro Muhammad Ali Sadpara Alex Txikon	335	68	20.7%	77%	5.5%
Annapurna I	8091 m 26,545 ft	Nepal	3 Jun 1950	Maurice Herzog Louis Lachenal	3 Feb 1987	Jerzy Kukuczka Artur Hajzer	191	61	33.5%	66%	19.7%
Gasherbrum I (Hidden Peak)	8080 m 26,444 ft	Pakistan China	5 Jul 1958	Andrew Kauffman Pete Schoening	9 Mar 2012	Adam Bielecki Janusz Gołąb	334	29	8.9%	16%	8.8%
Broad Peak	8051 m 26,414 ft	Pakistan China	9 Jun 1957	Fritz Wintersteller Marcus Schmuck Kurt Diemberger Hermann Buhl	5 Mar 2013	Maciej Berbeka Adam Bielecki Tomasz Kowalski Artur Małek	404	21	5.3%	5%	8.6%
Gasherbrum II	8035 m 26,362 ft	Pakistan China	7 Jul 1956	Fritz Moravec Josef Larch Hans Willenpart	2 Feb 2011	Simone Moro Denis Urubko Cory Richards	930	21	2.3%	8%	0.4%
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	302	25	8.4%	2%	16.8%

Climbers with verified ascents of all 14 eight-thousanders

Field O₂ lists people who have climbed all 14 without bottled oxygen.

Order accomplished [21]	All without O2 (order)	Name	Period	Born	Age	Nationality
1	1	Reinhold Messner	1970–1986	1944	42	Italian
2		Jerzy Kukuczka	1979–1987 (deceased)	1948	39	Polish
3	2	Erhard Loretan	1982–1995 (deceased)	1959	36	Swiss
4	[22]	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		Young-Seok Park	1993–2001 (deceased)[23]	1963	38	Korean
9		Hong-Gil Um	1988–2001	1960[24]	40	Korean
10	4	Alberto Iñurrategi	1991-2002[25]	1968	33	Spanish
11		Wang-Yong Han	1994–2003	1966	37	Korean
12	5[26]	Ed Viesturs	1989–2005	1959	46	American
13	6[27][28][29]	Silvio Mondinelli	1993–2007	1958	49	Italian
14	7[30]	Ivan Vallejo	1997–2008	1959	49	Ecuadorian
15	8[31]	Denis Urubko	2000–2009	1973	35	Kazakhstani
16		Ralf Dujmovits	1990–2009	1961[32]	47	German
17	9	Veikka Gustafsson	1993–2009	1968	41	Finnish
18[33]		Andrew Lock	1993–2009	1961[34]	48	Australian
19	10	João Garcia	1993–2010	1967	43	Portuguese
20[35]		Piotr Pustelnik	1990–2010	1951	58	Polish
21[36]		Edurne Pasaban	2001–2010	1973	36	Spanish
22[37]		Abele Blanc	1992–2011[38][39]	1954	56	Italian
23		Mingma Sherpa	2000–2011[38]	1978	33	Nepali
24	11	Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner	1998–2011[38]	1970	40	Austrian
25		Vassily Pivtsov	2001–2011[38]	1975	36	Kazakhstani
26	12	Maxut Zhumayev	2001–2011[38]	1977	34	Kazakhstani
27		Jae-Soo Kim	2000–2011[38]	1961	50	Korean
28[40]	13	Mario Panzeri	1988–2012	1964	48	Italian
29[41]		Hirotaka Takeuchi	1995–2012[41]	1971	41	Japanese
30		Chhang Dawa Sherpa	2001–2013[38]	1982	30	Nepali
31	14	Kim Chang-Ho	2005–2013[38]	1970	43	Korean
32		Jorge Egocheaga	2002–2014[42]	1968	45	Spanish
33	15	Radek Jaroš	1998–2014[38]	1964	50	Czech
34/35[43]	16/17[43]	Nives Meroi	1998-2017[44][45]	1961	55	Italian
34/35[43]	16/17[43]	Romano Benet	1998-2017[44][45][46]	1962	55	Italian Slovenian
36	18	Peter Hámor	1998-2017[47]	1964	52	Slovak
37	19	Azim Gheychisaz	2008-2017[48]	1981	37	Iranian
38		Ferran Latorre	1999-2017[49]	1970	46	Spanish
39	20	Òscar Cadiach	1984-2017[50]	1952	64	Spanish

Disputed

Claims in which not enough evidence was provided to verify the ascents of all 14 peaks. The disputed ascent in each claim is shown in parentheses.

Name	Period	Born	Age	Nationality
Fausto De Stefani (Lhotse 1997)[51]	1983–1998	1952	46	Italian
Alan Hinkes (Cho Oyu 1990)[52][53]	1987–2005	1954	53	British
Vladislav Terzyul (Shishapangma 2000, Broad Peak 1995[54][55])[56][57]	1993–2004 (deceased)	1953	49	Ukrainian
Eun-Sun Oh (Kangchenjunga 2009)[58][59][60][61]	1997–2010	1966	44	Korean
Carlos Pauner (Shishapangma 2012)[62]	2001–2013	1963	50	Spanish

Image gallery

• 
  No. 1 – Everest
• 
  No. 2 – K2
• 
  No. 3 – Kangchenjunga
• 
  No. 4 – Lhotse
• 
  No. 5 – Makalu
• 
  No. 6 – Cho Oyu
• 
  No. 7 – Dhaulagiri
• 
  No. 8 – Manaslu
• 
  No. 9 – Nanga Parbat
• 
  No. 10 – Annapurna
• 
  No. 11 – Gasherbrum I
• 
  No. 12 – Broad Peak
• 
  No. 13 – Gasherbrum II
• 
  No. 14 – Shishapangma

Comparison of the heights of the Eight-thousanders (red triangles) with the Seven Summits and Seven Second Summits.

See also

• Explorers Grand Slam, also known as The Adventurers Grand Slam
• List of deaths on eight-thousanders
• List of highest mountains
• List of Mount Everest summiters by number of times to the summit
• List of ski descents of Eight-Thousanders
• Seven Second Summits
• Seven Summits
• Three Poles Challenge
• Volcanic Seven Summits

References

External links

• Site dedicated to the 8000m peaks and mountaineers
• Pictures of 8'000 meter peaks
• The Eight-Thousanders
• Map in MapsCamp showing the locations of the main summits