Dick Bass, who invented the idea

Dick Bass stood on top of Everest on 30 April 1985, at 55, and became the first person to climb the highest mountain on every continent. He was a Texas oilman and the owner of a ski resort, not a professional climber. That was rather the point.

An oilman with a ski resort

Richard Daniel Bass was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 21 December 1929, and grew up in Dallas. He went to Yale at 16, graduated in geology in 1950, and served two years in the US Navy during the Korean War. Then he went home to run the family's oil, gas and ranching business.

Skiing was his passion. He invested early in Vail, and in 1971 he opened the Snowbird ski resort in Utah with Ted Johnson. He owned it until 2014.

The idea, and the partner

In the early 1980s Bass met Frank Wells, who had just stepped down as vice-chairman of Warner Bros and would later run Disney. Both were in their fifties, and between them they came up with a plain challenge: climb the highest mountain on each of the seven continents, Kosciuszko included for Australia.

Nobody had done it. Bass and Wells hired guides, paid for the logistics and set off.

Six summits in one year

What followed in 1983 is the part of the story that is easy to miss. Our record has Bass on top of Aconcagua in January, Denali in July, Kilimanjaro and Elbrus in September, Vinson at the end of November and Kosciuszko in December. Six of the seven, in a single year, and Kosciuszko, a walk of a few hours, was the easy one.

Everest was not easy. Bass and Wells were turned back on their first attempt, and Wells decided not to try again. Bass went back twice more.

Everest, on the third attempt

On his third attempt Bass climbed with the guide David Breashears and the Sherpa Ang Phurba. They reached the summit on 30 April 1985. At 55 Bass was the oldest person to have stood on Everest at that time, a record that held until 1993.

He and Wells told the story, with the writer Rick Ridgeway, in the book Seven Summits, published in 1986.

What his climb changed

Not everyone welcomed it. Jon Krakauer argued in Into Thin Air that Bass's ascent with Breashears pulled Everest into a new era. Guided expeditions became a business, and paying clients with modest experience could buy a place on the mountain.

There is truth in that. Guiding on Everest did grow after 1985, and it has its problems. There is also a simpler truth behind it: Bass showed that a determined amateur, well guided and well prepared, could climb the highest mountain on every continent. Most of the 813 finishers on our record followed that path in one form or another.

The list that carries his name

The set Bass climbed is now called the Bass list. Reinhold Messner argued for Carstensz Pyramid instead of Kosciuszko, and in 1986 Pat Morrow became the first to complete that version. Both lists survive. Our post on the two lists explains the difference.

Bass died in Dallas on 26 July 2015, aged 85. He is number one on the Bass list, and his climber page lists all seven ascents.