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Climber with an oxygen mask on the summit of Mount Everest

Summit of Everest

About 7summits.com

7summits.com is an independent reference for the 7 summits, the highest peak on each continent. It holds a database of everyone known to have finished them, route guides built from real recordings, a library, a directory of the companies that guide the peaks, and a forum.

Free to use, with no ad networks. Our rankings, reviews and verdicts are never for sale; anything a company or brand pays for, a sponsor's banner included, is labelled as paid.

Link to this clauseWho runs it

Owned, written and built by Harry Kikstra, a Dutch climber, photographer and writer based in Amsterdam.

He climbed the first of his 7 summits, Kilimanjaro, on Christmas Day 1998, completed the Messner list in January 2006 and the Bass list in February 2008, and summited Everest in 2005 from the Tibetan side. He has guided on six of the 7, and was the third Dutchman to finish them.

He wrote the Rucksack Readers guidebooks to Aconcagua, Denali and Everest, the Dutch book 3x Everest, and produced and appears in Eye To Eye With Everest. Away from the 7 summits he rode a bicycle from Alaska to Patagonia, 26,000 km, two and a half years.

Three of the guides, Aconcagua, Denali and Everest, grew out of those books and the longer manuscripts behind them, and have since been expanded and brought up to date; the other five were written from scratch.

All eight are checked on a schedule (monthly for permits and access) and updated whenever something changes.

The site itself is built from scratch, and everything on it (text, photographs, route data and code) is his work unless credited otherwise. All content is copyright Harry Kikstra / 7summits.com.

Link to this clauseWhere it came from

It started with a single expedition in 1998. The company followed in 1999 at the7summits.com, which is why the logo still read that way for 20 years. Soon afterwards Harry acquired 7summits.com and moved the site to the shorter address.

For more than twenty years this was an expedition operator, running trips to all 7 summits, 8, counting both of the peaks the two lists disagree about. That business is closed: we no longer run expeditions, and this site sells no trips.

The history is worth keeping, because it is why the route guides are as specific as they are (those routes were run, repeatedly, with clients on them) and why an hour of planning advice is worth something.

The old site is gone now. This is its replacement, rebuilt from the ground up: the finisher records and the statistics carry over, almost nothing else does.

Link to this clauseWhat is on it

  • The 7 summits, what the challenge is, why there are two rival lists, and how the 8 peaks compare.
  • Guides, the approach, every camp, summit day and the descent, with maps, elevation profiles and GPX tracks built from real recordings rather than drawn by hand.
  • Offline packs, a whole peak’s guide, routes and elevation profiles in one file, for reading where there is no signal.
  • Statistics, the months each peak is actually climbed in, how long the 7 summits really take, and who the people who finish them are, measured from the finisher record.
  • Trip reports, first-hand accounts of a climb, written by the people who were there.
  • Finishers, everyone known to have completed them, sortable and filterable, with a page per climber and leaderboards for the records.
  • Operators, who guides the 7 summits and what can be verified about each. Paid listings are labelled and never change the order.
  • Forum, trip reports, route questions, and plans checked by people who have been.
  • Gear, a kit list for each peak, written from the lists operators and climbers use today. Members tick off what they own in their gear shed and get a shopping list for the rest, and pack trip duffels with the weight of every bag.
  • Library, the books, films and documentaries about these mountains.
  • Glossary, the climbing words used in the guides, explained in plain English, with the trivia quiz and a collection of quotes alongside.
  • FAQ, the questions that come up again and again.
  • Blog, writing about the record, the routes and what the numbers actually say.
  • Roadmap, what gets built next, proposed and voted on by members.

Much of this comes from readers: forum posts and trip reports, route and operator corrections, finisher records submitted by climbers or their families, and GPS recordings from people who walked the ground. Contributions are checked before publication, and credited, if something here is wrong, say so.

Link to this clauseHow it is made

Harry writes and edits the English, and decides what is published. AI helps: it drafts and tidies text under his direction, helps research new finishers (every record is checked against its sources and approved by a person before it appears), and builds much of the site's code.

The Dutch, Spanish and German pages are translated by AI from the English, using a climbing glossary Harry approved; a daily review checks each new translation before it goes live and leaves anything doubtful for him.

Once a week an AI also re-checks facts in the guides, FAQs and operator listings, such as permit fees and seasons. It never changes a published fact on its own: it flags what looks out of date, and a person decides.

If anything reads wrong, the "Spotted something?" link under every page reaches us.

Link to this clauseMembership: free and paid

The site is free to read: every guide, every finisher record, the operator directory and the forum, in four languages.

Two paid tiers exist for people who want to keep it that way:

  • Expedition (€70 (about $78) a year) adds downloads such as GPX tracks, offline packs and ebooks, and
  • Summit Circle (€177 (about $198) a year) adds an hour of Harry’s time each year on top of that.

Two other ways in are not for sale at any price: active contributors are sometimes given a year, and verified 7-summits finishers hold Summit Circle for life, free of charge.

The full comparison is on the membership page.

Link to this clauseSupporting the site

Building and running this costs money. A lot, actually: server hosting, databases, GitHub, development costs, fighting bots, and thee 50+ domains pointing at it all are base costs.

We have stopped organizing expeditions ourselves, to be as objective as possible, so we are dependent on our users.

The most useful thing you can do to support us is:

  • Take out a membership, it is what keeps the site independent of advertisers.
  • Give once if a subscription is not for you. Any currency, crypto or cash helps us pay the bills.
  • Using the affiliate links when you were buying the book anyway costs you nothing extra.
  • And if you run an expedition company, get it listed: a basic listing is free, but a paid operator plan gets you clients. See all the benefits on the operator plan page.
  • If you are a large operator or a 7 summits-related brand, you can sponsor a the newsletter, a page, a mountain, or even the entire site. Check out partner options here or contact us.
  • Send us gear and books to review. It won't change the editorial reviews, but it definitely speeds things up and you'll get your products before a large and interested audience.

Memberships, company plans and gifts are paid through Stripe, and every payment comes with an invoice. Supporters are named on the Supporters page unless they would rather not be.

Some links (mostly in the Library) earn a small commission if you buy after clicking one. The price you pay is identical either way, it never affects what is recommended, and it has no bearing on the operator directory or on any ranking. Full disclosure is in the disclaimer.

Link to this clauseGetting in touch

Corrections, missing finishers, operator listings, contributed photographs or GPS tracks, press enquiries, or anything the FAQ does not answer, use the contact form.