Jaime Viñals

Jaime Viñals Massanet (born November 17, 1966) is a Guatemalan mountaineer, the first person from Central America and Caribbean region ever to climb the Earth's highest peak, Mount Everest, after reaching the summit together with the American Andy Lakpass and the Danish Asmus Noreslet on an expedition from New Zealand organized by Russell Brice, Since then, he became one of the few people to have reached the Seven Summits - the highest mountains of each of the seven (sub-)continents.[1] also he has finished to climb the Seven Islands of the World.

Biography

Born in Guatemala City, Viñals studied biology at the Universidad de San Carlos. He began climbing locally in 1987, aged 26. Since then, he has climbed over 300 mountains in 42 countries.[1]

Viñals first attempted to get to the top of Mount Everest in the spring of 1994. After having passed the 8,000 meters mark, the expedition was unsuccessful at reaching the summit due to the inclement weather, and had to return. The group, however, succeeded at establishing a new ascending route. Viñals returned to the Everest in the spring of 1999, climbing through the South Col route. While climbing, he injured himself, again unable to complete the ascent.[2]

Viñals had climbed all the other peaks of the Seven Summits challenge, including the ones listed on alternate definitions of the summit list, but still had not reached the peak of Everest. In 2001, he attempted the ascent for the third time. Using the less frequented North Col as the climbing route, he and others reached the summit of the Everest on May 23. Viñals became the third Latin American person to climb to the peak of Everest and to complete the ascent to the Seven Summits, and the first from Central America or the Caribbean to achieve such feats.[1][3]

In 2002, Viñals embarked on an attempt to climb the highest peak of each of the seven largest islands in the world.[4] This project involves climbing the highest summit of the seven largest islands of the world:

Island Mountain Name Altitude
Greenland Gunnbjørn Fjeld 3693 m
New Guinea Wilhelm 4509 m
Borneo Kinabalu 4101 m
Madagascar Maromokotro 2876 m
Baffin Island Tête Blanche 2156 m
Sumatra Kerinci 3800 m
Honshū Fuji 3776 m
See also: List of islands by area

Viñals has been involved in a project to climb the '50 Most Prominent Peaks on Earth'. As of March 2016 he has attained 33 of them.


Honours

In 1995, Viñals was awarded the Orden del Quetzal from Guatemalan President Ramiro de León Carpio.

See also
  • List of climbers

References
  1. "Details of 7 summits climber Vinals". 7summits.com. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  2. Francisco Mauricio Martínez. ""Jaime Viñals: En la cima, dan ganas de llorar y gritar"" (in Spanish). Prensa Libre. Archived from the original on 2007-01-07. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  3. www.everestnews.com. "List of Climbers who have reached the Seven Summits". www.everestnews.com. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  4. www.aventurarse.com. "Jaime Viñals" (in Spanish). Aventurarse S.A. Retrieved 2007-01-03.


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