On January 3, Hans Kammerlander, a 55-year-old mountaineer from South Tyrol in northern Italy, reached the summit of remote 15,919-foot (4,852 meters) Mount Tyree in the Vinson Massif in Antarctica and became the first person to reach the tops of the Second Seven Summits--the second highest points on the seven continents.
While a lot of people have now climbed the Seven Summits, no one had managed to do the Second Seven Summits. Parly because this ultimate tick-list of peaks is way harder and more dangerous than the Seven Summits, which includes walk-ups like Kilimanjaro in Africa, Aconcagua in South American, and Mount Elbrus in Europe.
The Second Seven Summit list, however, is tough. For starters K2, one of the most dangerous mountains in the world, has to be climbed, along with Mount Kenya, a rock climbing peak, and Mount Logan in Canada, one of the coldest mountains in the world.
Hans Kammerlander, who has climbed 13 of the 8,000-meter peaks, climbed K2, the hardest one, in 2001. Eight years later in 2009 he climbed Ojos del Salado in Chile and decided to set a goal of ticking off the Second Seven. In 2009 he also climbed Mount Kenya, then Mount Logan and Dychtau in Russia in 2010, Puncak Trikora in Oceania in 2010, and finally Mount Tyree at the beginning of this year.
Part of the reason, besides the obvious challenge, that Hans Kammerlander decided to do the Second Seven Summits is because he decided years ago that he would never climb all 14 of the 8,000-meter peaks, the world's highest mountains. While attempting Mansalu in 1991, his two climbing partners and friends were killed in a climbing accident. He vowed never to return to the mountain. Some of Kammerlander's other great ascents inlcude a traverse of Gasherbrum II and Gasherbrum I (Hidden Peak) with Reinhold Messner in 1984, as well as climbing from base camp to the summit of Mount Everest via the North Col route in only 16 hours and 45 minutes.
Photograph above: Bert Kammerlander from northern Italy is the first climber to reach the tops of the Second Seven Summits. Photograph courtesy Bert Kammerlander
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