Legendary mountaineer Jim Whittaker, the first American to summit Mount Everest, dies at 97

SEATTLE (AP) — The celebrated mountaineer Jim Whittaker, the first American to summit Mount Everest, has died. He was 97.

Whittaker, who also served as the first full-time employee of the outdoor retailer REI and later as its president and CEO, died Tuesday at his home in Port Townsend, Washington, according to a statement from his family.

“Whether at home, in the mountains, or at sea, he sought to share adventure, joy, and optimism with those around him,” said the statement, which was emailed by Leif Whittaker, one of his sons. “His warmth, humility, and belief in the power of nature to bring people together left an enduring legacy of care for our planet and for one another.”

Whittaker’s 1963 ascent of Everest alongside Nawang Gombu came 10 years after the pioneering climb of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. The feat helped spawn interest — and an industry — in mountaineering in the U.S., and it made the once-shy, rangy climber an instant celebrity. He was featured on magazine covers and in demand for public appearances.

Whittaker had been working for REI since 1955, when he was hired by the co-op's co-founder, Lloyd Anderson. The company's popularity surged after Whittaker's Everest climb, and Whittaker went on to lead the business from 1971 to 1979. Its membership grew from nearly 250,000 to more than 900,000 during his tenure, REI noted in a statement Wednesday.

The co-op credited his congressional testimony and other efforts with helping to establish North Cascades National Park and the Pasayten Wilderness in Washington, as well as and Redwood National Park in California.

“Long before outdoor advocacy was commonplace, Jim gave his voice — and his leadership — to protecting the places we love, reminding us that wild places endure only if we choose to care for them,” the statement said.

Whittaker's celebrity also brought him into the orbit of the Kennedy clan, and he became a close friend of Robert Kennedy, with whom he climbed a 14,000-foot (4,267 meters) Canadian peak. The peak was later named Mount Kennedy after the presidential contender's murder in 1968.

Whittaker was at Kennedy's bedside when he died and was devastated by the assassination.

Whittaker grew up in Seattle and began climbing with his twin brother Lou Whittaker in the 1940s with the Boy Scouts. At 16, they summited 7,965-foot (2,428-meter) Mount Olympus, the highest peak in the Olympic Mountains west of Seattle, Jim Whittaker recounted in his memoir, “A Life on the Edge.” When they reached the town of Port Angeles on their way home, they found cars honking and people celebrating: World War II had ended.

Jim Whittaker once reflected that the beauty and danger of his sport sharpened the senses: “When you live on the edge, you can see a little farther,” he once reflected.

His achievements on the remote, snowy slopes of Mount Everest and nearby K2, the world's second-tallest peak, assured him a niche in the record books. He was shocked when Lou decided to skip the 1963 Everest expedition in favor of opening a sporting goods store in Tacoma.

But Lou Whittaker wrote in his own book, “Lou Whittaker: Memoirs of a Mountain Guide,” that he still got to share in some of his twin’s glory by filling in when Jim got tired of attending parades or other events in his honor.

“Only our families and closest friends ever knew the difference,” he wrote.

Lou Whittaker died in 2024 at age 95.

Jim Whittaker led many additional climbs, including the 1990 Mount Everest International Peace Climb, which brought together climbers from the U.S., the Soviet Union and China “to demonstrate what could be accomplished through cooperation and goodwill,” the family statement said.

“Jim was a lifelong advocate for peace and believed deeply in the ability of shared challenges in the natural world to unite people across borders and ideologies,” it said.

Whittaker himself said one of his proudest moments came in 1981, when he led 10 handicapped climbers up 14,410-foot Mount Rainier. For them, he said later, "that was Mount Everest."

Whittaker scaled Mount Rainier more than 100 times but did not take its familiar flanks for granted. The caprices of the weather, even on a comparatively modest mountain, "can turn a good climber into a beginner" in a matter of hours, he once noted.

Former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee called Whittaker’s legacy “just as impressive, and just as lasting, as Mount Rainier itself."

“He pulled many a climber up the peak,” Inslee wrote in a social media post Wednesday. "He did the same for all our spirits. He still does.”

After years of risk on the world's most dizzying pinnacles, Whittaker said in a 1980 interview that he hoped to “die in my sleep with the television on.”