Jim Whittaker

James W. Whittaker, also known as Jim Whittaker ( born February 10, 1929 in Seattle, Washington) is an American mountaineer. He was the first American on the summit of Mount Everest in 1963.

Life

Together with his twin brother Lou Whittaker Jim Whittaker grew up in Seattle, the largest city of the state of Washington, to. The brothers completed the West Seattle High School and Seattle University. They were interested in soon for climbing and took advantage of the mountains of the Cascade Range to the 4,395 m high Mount Rainier, to gain experience as a mountaineer and mountain guide. Jim Whittaker ascended also the 6,195 m high Mount McKinley in Alaska, the highest mountain in North America. Like Mount Everest, Mount McKinley is one of the Seven Summits.

In 1963, Jim Whittaker, a member of the American Mount Everest Expedition under the leadership of Norman Dyhrenfurth. During the expedition, a dispute arose about the route to the summit. Tom Hornbein proposed a new route on the west ridge. Norman Dyhrenfurth wanted the traditional route, which already Edmund Hillary had committed use. If the intention of the first ascent of Mount Everest by an American on this route succeed, then he set it free Hornbein to try it on the new route. Therefore, Whittaker took over together with the Sherpa Nawang Gombu, a nephew of Tenzing Norgays, the less attractive route to the summit. On 1 May 1963 he hoisted on the top of the flag of the United States. Three weeks later, on 22 May 1963 also reached Barry Bishop and Lute Jerstad the summit on the traditional route, simultaneously climbed Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld on the new route to Mount Everest. They crossed the summit and met together on the descent route with their comrades.

All members of the expedition were honored by President John F. Kennedy with the rarely awarded the Hubbard Medal of the National Geographic Society.

As a result, Jim Whittaker became the confidant of Robert F. Kennedy. In 1965, Whittaker Robert Kennedy and other politicians and climbers to the summit of the hitherto unclimbed Mount Kennedy in Canada's Yukon Territory. Only recently, the nearly 4,000 m high summit was named after the assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

In September 1978, Whittaker led an American expedition to K2 in the Karakoram, the second highest mountain in the world. Although this mountain is considered to be far more difficult than Everest, climbers of the expedition in the ascent of the summit as the first Americans were successful.

Whittaker was in 1990 head of the Everest Peace Climb, which met representatives from the United States, the People's Republic of China and the former Soviet Union (Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine). It reached 20 climbers to the summit of Mount Everest. The expedition took on their way back over two tons of trash, the previous expeditions had left.

In 1999, Whittaker published his autobiography A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond.