The Seven Summits

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The quest to climb the highest mountain on each continent has captured the imagination of mountaineers, since the idea was first publicised by American, Dick Bass

The Seven Summits offer a fantastic challenge, with each mountain giving a unique experience. Together they provide an excuse to travel and climb all over the globe. Jagged Globe has helped numerous people achieve their Seven Summits. These have included Rhys Jones (the youngest person at the time, age 20) and Richard Parks, who completed them in just 6 Months, 11 Days, 7 Hours and 53 Minutes (including skiing the last degrees to both the north and south poles!) as part of his '737 Challenge'.

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The Seven Summits Challenge

The quest to climb the highest mountain on each continent has captured the imagination of mountaineers, since the idea was first publicised by American, Dick Bass

The Seven Summits offer a fantastic challenge, with each mountain giving a unique experience. Together they provide an excuse to travel and climb all over the globe. Jagged Globe has helped numerous people achieve their Seven Summits. These have included Rhys Jones (the youngest person at the time, age 20) and Richard Parks, who completed them in just 6 Months, 11 Days, 7 Hours and 53 Minutes (including skiing the last degrees to both the north and south poles!) as part of his '737 Challenge'.

Anyone can share the Seven Summit experience. Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua involve no technical difficulty and can be climbed as long as you have fitness and determination. Then, once you have increased your experience, you can consider some of the other summits, each one making you better prepared to tackle the next.

The Seven Summits Story

The idea of climbing the Seven Continental Summits was first publicised by American Dick Bass. His book, Seven Summits, described his ascents of the continental peaks, although he climbed Kosciusko, the Australian Summit, instead of the much higher and more difficult Carstensz Pyramid. Canadian Pat Morrow, was the first to complete all Seven Summits with Carstensz in 1986. Four months later Reinhold Messner followed suit. Over 30 ‘Seven Summiteers’ have climbed at least one of the mountains with Jagged Globe. Rhys Jones became the youngest person in the world to complete the Seven Summits, when he summited Everest on his 20th birthday. We asked Rhys what it takes to become a successful Seven Summiteer:

What advice would you give to someone who is considering trying to climb all Seven Summits?

“Once you're inspired and determined you obviously need to be pretty fit, and be prepared to give up your weekends to get into the hills. You need really good ‘tent admin’ to make life on the mountains comfortable. That's more useful then technical ability or fitness, because if your gear is dry and ice free, you'll climb a lot better. Finally, you need to find the cash. Either you have it, or more likely you'll be trying to persuade someone to pay for your trip. That's another skill entirely! Most of all, don't give up. If it was easy, everyone would do it...” read the full interview with Rhys »

The 737 Challenge

Richard Parks on Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America Photo: © 737 Challenge

As the first British company to lead and climb all Seven Summits, Jagged Globe was the obvious choice when Richard Parks decided that he wanted to try and climb them all in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care. We thought this might be too easy for the former Wales Rugby International, so we suggested that he ski the last degrees to both the North and South Poles as well, all within 7 months. The “737 Challenge” was born, with the aim of establishing a new “world first” and raising £1Million.

When Richard first contacted Jagged Globe in May 2009, he had no mountaineering experience whatsoever. Nineteen months later, he had completed 5 courses and 3 expeditions as part of his preparation before setting off to the South Pole. Including the North Pole in the challenge meant that Richard would arrive on Everest later in the season than normal, so would have less time to acclimatise and prepare for his ascent. After summiting Everest, a crevasse fall and marginal weather on Denali almost brought the challenge to a halt. The last leg, climbing Elbrus, also hung in the balance, due to terrorist activity in the Caucasus Mountains and the closure of the normal route from the south.

Did people really appreciate how tough this challenge was, how difficult the logistics were and how close it came to failure? Probably not! For Jagged Globe, it was one of our proudest moments seeing this project succeed. Richard took our advice from Day 1, did the training and gained the skills and experience to achieve something no one else had.

The Seven Summits Programme

We are frequently asked, “How do I go about climbing the Seven Summits?”. Here is an example four-year programme, assuming you start the challenge with no previous mountaineering experience. This programme might also be applied to someone who aspires to climb Everest. As an absolute minimum, we need to see Denali or equivalent on a climbing CV before we would accept someone onto our Everest expedition, and we always recommend attempting another 8,000er first... read more »

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Everest 2013 - Christian and Trond celebrate their Seven Summits completion Photo: © David Hamilton