The typical 7 summits finisher takes about seven and a half years from the first summit to the last, and about one in twenty does it inside a year. The longest on our record took almost 43. What the dates show, and why we only speak in years.
The typical 7 summits finisher takes about seven and a half years from the first summit to the last. Half of them take between four and a half and thirteen years. About one in twenty finishes inside a year.
They come from finishers on our record whose first and last summits are dated at least to the month. That is 276 climbers on the Bass list and 323 on the Messner list. The two lists come out almost the same.
The middle: most people take years
On the Messner list the median is about 7.5 years, and on the Bass list about 7.3. The middle half of finishers took between roughly four and a half and thirteen years.
That pace is what a working life allows. Most finishers climb one or two of the peaks a year, around jobs and families, and the expensive ones wait until there is money and leave. Vinson and Everest, the costliest two, are also among the most common last peaks.
The fast end: inside a year
Only 15 Messner finishers and 14 Bass finishers on our record completed their list in under a year. About one in ten took less than two years.
A year is possible because the seasons line up. Vinson and Aconcagua fall in the southern summer, Everest in May, Denali in June and Elbrus in July or August, so a climber with time and money can chain them. The record times are measured in months: Guinness lists 117 days for the Carstensz version, set by Steven Plain in 2018. The FAQ on the fastest 7 summits keeps the current records, and our leaderboards rank the fastest on each list.
Speed is not the point of the set, and on high mountains it adds risk. But the short end shows what a full-time climber can manage once the calendar is in their favour.
The long end: a lifetime
At the other end, about a third of finishers took ten years or more, and one in ten took twenty or more. The longest on our record is Richard Thurmer Jr: almost 43 years, from a first summit at 18 to his last at 61, in January 2017.
Close behind him is Carlos Soria of Spain. He climbed Elbrus in 1968 and finished on Kilimanjaro in January 2010, days before his 71st birthday. His story is in our post on Carlos Soria.
Both of them started before the 7 summits existed as an idea. Dick Bass only finished the first set in 1985, eleven years after Thurmer's first summit and seventeen after Soria's.
Why we never quote a duration to the day
A finish date is only as good as the dates behind it. Many older ascents on our record are known to the month or the year, not the day, and an unknown day was traditionally written as the first of the month. A duration built from two such dates can be wrong by weeks while looking exact.
So this post counts only finishers whose first and last summits are dated at least to the month, and it speaks in years. The finisher lists show each climber's dates, and the climber pages say plainly when a date is approximate.
What it means for a plan
If you are starting now, plan in years, not months. A comfortable pace is two peaks a year, which gets you around in four years with room for a turned-back attempt. Our post on which peak to climb first sets out an order, and the 7 summits page has the eight peaks side by side.
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