Annapurna is the last peak in Bainbridge climber’s quest

In his office above the garage at his Bainbridge Island home, mountain climber Ed Viesturs is planning an ascent that will put him right at the top in the mountaineering history books.

This spring, sometime around April and May, Viesturs hopes to become the first American — and sixth person — to reach the summit of all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter (over 26,000 feet) peaks.

The last obstacle is the 26,545-foot Annapurna in Nepal.

"I’ve been there twice, but it’s a pretty nasty mountain," Viesturs said. "It’s kind of dangerous."

Every time Viesturs, 44, goes up a mountain, it’s dangerous. But he’s been close to death only once.

"There are some mountaineers and climbers who are very egotistical, very arrogant, very self centered," he said. "Then there are others — and hopefully I include in this group — who do these climbs for personal reasons. Not for media attention. Not to tell people how cool they are."

Viesturs first tried to climb Annapurna in 2000, but avalanche danger forced him to turn back. Last year, he tried the east ridge and got within 3,000 feet of the summit. Again the threat of an avalanche kept him from the summit.

"I walked away," he said. "A lot of people in the mountains make bad judgments. As a result, they get in trouble."

Viesturs decided climbing mountains is what he wanted to do when he was a junior at Rockford East High School in Rockford, Ill., and started rock climbing at nearby Devils Lake, Wis.

"It just kind of came out of the blue," he said. "I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to go climbing.’ "

After graduating from high school in 1977, Viesturs headed toward Seattle for college because of the proximity of the Cascade Mountains. He wanted to climb mountains such as Mount Rainier and Oregon’s Mount Hood.

"You learn a lot that you need to know in the Himalayas right here in the Seattle area," Viesturs said. "It’s a great training ground."

He got a degree in zoology from the University of Washington in 1981 and then went on to get a degree in veterinary medicine from Washington State University in Pullman in 1987.

Viesturs worked as a veterinarian for a couple of years before he quit to focus solely on mountaineering.

In 1989, Viesturs reached his first 8,000-meter summit at 28,169-foot Kanchenjunga in Nepal. In 1990, he climbed 29,035-foot Mount Everest for the first of five times.

In 1992, he climbed K-2 on the border of Pakistan and China with the late Scott Fischer. At that time, no one had climbed the mountain in six years.

"It’s steeper than Everest," he said. "The terrain is difficult. The weather is unpredictable. It’s just got everything going against it."

Viesturs and Fischer almost died on K-2.

At the 25,000-foot level of K-2, they were asked to go up the mountain to help rescue a woman who was snow blind and exhausted. She had spent the night just below the summit.

Viesturs and Fischer were tied together with a 50-foot piece of rope when Viesturs, believing that an avalanche was inevitable, dug a small hole in the snow with his ice ax so he wouldn’t get swept off the face of the mountain.

"After I got done digging, I looked up and Scott was being hit by this wave of snow," Viesturs said. "Scott tumbled past me with the avalanche."

Viesturs was pulled down the mountain by the weight of Fischer. But Viesturs, who is exceptionally strong for his 5-foot-10 1/2, 165-pound size, stopped the pair with his ice ax 200 feet down the mountain.

Viesturs felt lucky to not have been killed.

"We were out doing something to help somebody else in conditions that I normally don’t go out in," he said. "If we were just climbing on our own, we would have just stayed in our tent that day."

In 1996, on the way to the summit of Mount Everest for the fourth time, Viesturs came across the body of his good friend, Fischer, from Seattle.

Fischer, 40, was one of eight climbers to die on Everest May 10, 1996, as they were descending from the summit. It was the deadliest single tragedy in Everest’s climbing history.

In 1994, Viesturs climbed 27,939-foot Lhotse in Nepal and 26,750-foot Cho Oyu in Tibet. In 1995, he reached the summit of 27,765-foot Makalu in Nepal, and 26,360-foot Gasherbrum II and 26,470-foot Gasherbrum I in the Himalayas’ Karakoram Range. He climbed 26,400-foot Broad Peak in the Karakoram Range in 1997 and conquered 26,758-foot Manaslu and 26,794-foot Dhualagiri, both in Nepal, in 1999.

In the 2000s, he’s added 26,300-foot Shishapangma in Tibet (2001) and 26,658-foot Nanga Parbat in Pakistan (2003).

Viesturs did it his way, too. He didn’t use oxygen on any of his ascents.

"Why use oxygen just to get to the summit?" he said. "That didn’t appeal to me. I wanted to push myself harder and train and focus mentally to see if I couldn’t get to 29,000 feet without oxygen."

Jim Whittaker, 74, the first American to climb Everest in 1993, calls Viesturs the best American mountain climber ever.

"The guy’s an animal," said Whittaker, who now lives in Port Townsend. "He’s a great climber. I’d give that to him. He’s done 13 (8,000-meter mountains), he’s still alive and he’s done it without bottled oxygen. He’s above the best (Americans)."

In Whittaker’s heyday, all the climbers used oxygen.

"Those days you didn’t know you could survive without it," Whittaker said. "You kind of learn what can be done."

David Breashears, a mountaineer and filmmaker from Boston, hopes to be a member of Viesturs’ climbing team of Annapurna. He is a good friend of Viesturs and joined him on two of his Mount Everest ascents.

"What sets Ed apart is his tremendous ambition to be the first American to climb all 8,000-meter peaks," said Breashears, 47. "It’s his personal goal. He would be doing it with or without sponsors and with or without publicity. He just wants to do it."

Breashears said other mountain climbers feel safe when they’re climbing with Viesturs.

"Ed has managed to have a life in the high mountains and he still has not only his life, but all his fingers and toes," Breashears said.

Viesturs was a competitive swimmer in the freestyle sprint events in high school and he trains five or six days a week, lifting weights three days a week, running six to seven miles a day and also skiing and going sea kayaking.

Viesturs has been tested at a physiology laboratory at the University of Washington. The tests showed that his lungs are much larger than normal, allowing him to take in more oxygen. His body also uses oxygen more efficiently than normal.

"The doctors said that I picked the right parents and had the right genes," Viesturs said. "Not that my parents are mountaineers or anything, but somehow whatever came together allowed me to suffer a lot less at high altitude.

"I just function better," he said. "My body doesn’t fall apart like other people at high altitude."

Viesturs has been cautious throughout his climbing career, but has been even more so since 1996, when he got married. He and his wife, Paula, have two small children; a son, Gilbert, 6, and a daughter, Ella, 3.

That won’t keep him from climbing though, because climbing is where he makes his living.

Viesturs has a dozen sponsors and he makes a lot of public appearances for them at such functions as sales meetings. He also does a lot of corporate speaking.

"Everything is related to climbing," he said.

A successful climb up Annapurna next year would be Viesturs’ 21st 8,000-meter ascent. If he is successful, he plans to cut back a bit on the size of his climbing.

"I think I’m still as strong as I’ve ever been," Viesturs said. "But I want to tone it down if I climb Annapurna. I still want to go to smaller peaks. Not 8,000 meters. But 24,000 feet, 25,000 feet. That’s a bit more reasonable."