Press and media

For journalists, writers and website owners. Everything here may be quoted, and the files may be used, on the terms at the end of this page. The numbers come straight from the finisher record and update with every approved climber, so they are current on the day you read them.

The 7 summits in numbers

• 808 people have climbed the 7 summits, the highest mountain on each continent.
• 464 have completed the Kosciuszko list (Bass) and 569 the Carstensz Pyramid list (Messner). 259 have done both, all eight summits.
• 187 of the finishers are women.
• Between them they hold 82 nationalities.
• The first to finish was Dick Bass of the United States, in 1985. Pat Morrow of Canada was the first to complete the Carstensz Pyramid list, in 1986.
• Most finishers take several years. The fastest rounds on record took about four months (the leaderboards).

What the 7 summits are

The 7 summits are the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. Six are agreed on by everyone: Everest (8,849 m, Asia), Aconcagua (6,961 m, South America), Denali (6,190 m, North America), Kilimanjaro (5,895 m, Africa), Elbrus (5,642 m, Europe) and Vinson (4,892 m, Antarctica). The seventh depends on where you draw the edge of Australia. About the 7 summits has a short portrait of each mountain.

Two lists: Bass and Messner

The Kosciuszko list, also called the Bass list, counts Kosciuszko (2,228 m) on the Australian mainland. It is the original version: Dick Bass finished it in 1985, and the climb itself is a walk.

The Carstensz Pyramid list, also called the Messner list, counts Carstensz Pyramid (4,884 m) in Papua, Indonesia. Reinhold Messner argued that New Guinea stands on the same continental shelf as Australia and that a real seventh summit should need real climbing. It does: the route is rock climbing on fixed ropes, and the mountain is hard to reach.

Both lists are counted here, and climbers who want no argument climb both. The two lists explains the history; how it began goes back to 1956.

How we verify a finisher

Nobody registers a summit with an authority, so a list of finishers is only as good as the checking behind it. 7summits.com has kept this record since 2001, working with Eberhard Jurgalski of 8000ers.com; the chroniclers tells that story.

Applying is free, and nobody is charged to be listed. A climber gives the date of every summit and their evidence: summit photos, certificates, press pieces, videos or GPS tracks. A person reads every application, and nothing is published until they have. Every Everest ascent is also checked against the Himalayan Database.

Where the evidence points one way but is thin, a record can be listed as provisional: marked with an asterisk and kept off the leaderboards until it is confirmed. A summit date known only to the month or the year is marked as estimated, and never used to rank anyone to the day.

About Harry Kikstra

Short bio

Harry Kikstra is a Dutch climber, photographer and writer based in Amsterdam, and the founder of 7summits.com. He has climbed all eight summits of both lists, guided on six of them, and written guidebooks to Aconcagua, Denali and Everest. He has kept the 7 summits finisher record since 2001.

Long bio

Harry Kikstra has spent more than 25 years climbing, guiding, writing and photographing mountains. He climbed the first of his 7 summits, Kilimanjaro, on Christmas Day 1998, reached the top of Everest from Tibet in 2005, completed the Carstensz Pyramid list in January 2006 and the Kosciuszko list in February 2008. He was the third Dutch climber to finish the 7 summits.

In 1999 he founded an expedition company at the7summits.com, which for more than twenty years ran trips to all eight summits. That business is closed; the site sells no trips, which is what lets it judge the companies that do.

He wrote the Rucksack Readers guidebooks Aconcagua: Summit of South America, Denali/Mount McKinley: Summit of North America and Everest: Summit of the World, and the Dutch book 3x Everest, and he produced and appears in the documentary Eye To Eye With Everest. Away from the 7 summits he cycled from Alaska to Patagonia: 26,000 km in two and a half years. He holds a Master’s degree in Business Management.

Since 2001 he has researched the 7 summits record with Eberhard Jurgalski of 8000ers.com. He writes and edits 7summits.com himself; its guides grew out of his books and have been expanded and kept up to date since. More about the site.

Press release

The 7 summits count, corrected

Amsterdam, 26 October 2026. 808 people have now climbed the highest mountain on every continent, according to the finisher record kept by 7summits.com. Many websites, books and AI answers still give a much lower figure, most often 350 or 416; 416 was this site’s own count in 2016.

Of the 808, 464 have completed the Kosciuszko list (Bass) and 569 the Carstensz Pyramid list (Messner), and 259 have done both. 187 are women, and between them the finishers hold 82 nationalities.

In 2026 the record was rebuilt along with the site and researched again: names from national climbing lists, club reports and the climbers’ own websites were checked one by one, and added only with evidence. Every finisher has a page with the date of each summit, and the whole record can be searched free at 7summits.com/finishers.

Climbers who are missing can apply free of charge.

About 7summits.com. An independent reference for the 7 summits since 1999: the finisher record, guidebooks to all eight mountains, a directory of the companies that guide them, a library and a forum, in English, Dutch, Spanish and German. It is free to read and carries no ad networks.

Story ideas

The record can answer more than "how many". A few places to start:

• The first from your country. Every finisher’s nationality is on the record, and the country pages list each country’s finishers in the order they finished.
• Women on the 7 summits. 187 women have finished, starting with Junko Tabei of Japan in 1992. The women’s list has all of them.
• Youngest and oldest. The leaderboards rank the youngest and oldest at the moment they finished.
• Record times. The fastest rounds took about four months; most finishers take years. The leaderboards rank the speed records.
• The argument about Australia. Kosciuszko is a walk, Carstensz Pyramid a rock climb in a jungle, and the two lists have split the record since 1986. 259 climbers have settled it by doing both.
• On their way. Climbers part-way through log their summits as they go.

Need a number the pages do not show, such as finishers by year or by country? Ask, and we will see what the record can tell you.

Using these materials

Free to use with a credit: the facts and numbers on this page, the press release, the wordmark and artwork, the screenshots, the finisher badge and the press photo, in articles, broadcasts, books and websites about 7summits.com, the 7 summits or its finishers.

How to credit: "Source: 7summits.com" for numbers, and the date you read them, linked to 7summits.com/finishers online. "Image: 7summits.com" for the wordmark, artwork, screenshots and badge, and "Photo: 7summits.com" for the press photo. The contour artwork rests on elevation data from Mapzen Terrain Tiles; keep that credit with it.

Ask first: for the text of the guides and FAQs, the photographs in the guides and the Library, the route maps and GPS tracks, and anything used in advertising or on merchandise. Photographs credited to somebody else belong to them, not to us.

Please do not stretch, recolour or redraw the wordmark or the marks, crop a screenshot so that it shows something the site does not say, or suggest that 7summits.com endorses a product, a company or a trip.

Contact

For an interview, a quote, a higher-resolution photo or data for a story, use the contact form and choose Press and media. Harry answers press enquiries himself.