Erik Weihenmayer

Erik Weihenmayer

Erik Weihenmayer (* 1968 in New Jersey ) is an American mountaineer . On May 25, 2001, he was the first blind man to climb Mount Everest . In September 2002 Weihenmayer had also climbed the Seven Summits after the Mount Kosciuszko version, in 2008 also after the Carstensz pyramid version.

In addition to mountaineering and climbing in ice and rock, Weihenmayer also practices paragliding , long-distance cycling, marathon running and skiing. He is friends with Sabriye Tenberken and Paul Kronenberg , the founders of the Braille Without Borders organization , which he visited in Tibet .

biography

Erik Weihenmayer was born in 1968 with the hereditary disease retinoschisis , which made him completely blind at the age of 13. He graduated from Weston High School in Connecticut in 1987 . As captain of his school's wrestling team , he represented Connecticut at the National Wrestling Freestyle Championships. Weihenmayer graduated from Boston College in 1991 and climbed several peaks of the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan in the same year .

In 1993 he graduated from Lesley College as a teacher and began teaching in Phoenix . In the same year he crossed the Batura glacier in the Karakoram in northern Pakistan . Two years later Weihenmayer climbed Mount McKinley , the highest peak in North America , sponsored by the American national blind organization .

Erik Weihenmayer carried the 1996 Olympic torch through Phoenix. In 1997 he climbed Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and got married on its summit. With his father, a Vietnam veteran , he then cycled with a tandem from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in 1998 . In 1999 Weihenmayer climbed the Argentine summit of Aconcagua and finally on May 25, 2001 Mt. Everest .

In 2004 Weihenmayer led an expedition in Tibet , called the “Climbing Blind” project, in which blind young people from the Braille Without Borders School for the Blind in Lhasa and an American film team took part. The result was the film called Blindsight , which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006 and was shown at the 2007 Berlinale .

literature

• Erik Weihenmayer: I felt the sky. Without sight to the highest peaks in the world. Malik Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-89029-216-X

Web links

• Climbing Blind Project (English)
• “Weihenmayer Reaches the Top” (article from The Braille Monitor )
• Weihe Mayers website (English)