Jim Whittaker, the Army veteran and mountaineer who turned the primary American to succeed in the summit of Mount Everest, died Tuesday at his dwelling in Port Townsend, Washington. He was 97.
Whittaker died peacefully together with his spouse, Dianne Roberts, and different relations at his facet, based on a press release from the household launched by his son Leif.
His 1963 ascent of the world’s tallest peak made him an in a single day movie star, earned him a gathering with President John F. Kennedy and launched a decades-long profession that helped remodel the American out of doors recreation business. However earlier than any of that, Whittaker was a U.S. soldier, drafted into the Army throughout the Korean Conflict and assigned to coach a number of the army’s greatest troops within the mountains of Colorado.
From Boy Scouts to the Army
Whittaker and his twin brother, Lou, have been born Feb. 10, 1929, and grew up within the Arbor Heights neighborhood of West Seattle. They found climbing as youngsters by the Boy Scouts and the Mountaineers, a Seattle-based out of doors membership, based on a tribute posted by the group.
By 16, the brothers had summited Mount Olympus, the very best peak in Washington’s Olympic Mountains at 7,965 toes. In his memoir, “A Life on the Edge,” Whittaker recalled that once they reached the city of Port Angeles on the return journey, they discovered automobiles honking and folks celebrating the tip of World Conflict II.
The twins turned mountain guides on Mount Rainier and took over administration of the nationwide park’s information service in 1949, as Whittaker detailed in his memoir. Between climbing seasons, Whittaker studied at Seattle College and labored as a ski tools salesman.
When the Korean Conflict broke out, each brothers have been drafted into the Army. Initially assigned to a Sign Corps detachment in California, their climbing credentials rapidly earned them a switch to the Army’s Mountain and Chilly Climate Coaching Command at Camp Hale, Colorado, the unique set up of the tenth Mountain Division.
The twins arrived at Camp Hale in January 1953. Their project was to arrange troopers for cold-weather fight, instructing alpine climbing, snowboarding strategies, bivouacs and mountain maneuvers, all abilities they’d sharpened as civilian guides on Mount Rainier. The Whittaker Mountaineering firm, based by the household, famous on its web site that the brothers additionally skilled particular forces troopers and taught mountaineering at Wind River, Wyoming.
Each brothers acquired honorable discharges in 1954 and returned to Seattle. The tenth Mountain Division was later named each as honorary members when the unit was reactivated in 1985.
From REI to the Prime of the World
A yr after leaving the Army, Whittaker acquired a name from Lloyd Anderson, the co-founder of REI and a pal from his Mountaineers days. The small Seattle cooperative had about 600 members and Anderson wanted assist maintaining with demand, based on a put up on REI’s web site.
Whittaker turned REI’s first full-time paid worker in 1955. He was a one-man operation, dealing with every little thing from stocking cabinets to creating financial institution deposits, he later recalled.
He stayed with REI for 1 / 4 century, finally rising to president and CEO. Throughout his tenure main the corporate from 1971 to 1979, the co-op’s membership grew from roughly 250,000 to greater than 900,000.
On Could 1, 1963, Whittaker and Sherpa Nawang Gombu reached the summit of Everest, a decade after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first stood on the 29,032-foot peak. The expedition earned Whittaker and his teammates the Nationwide Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal, which President Kennedy introduced on the White Home. Seattle threw a parade in his honor.
The 6-foot-5 Whittaker was a bodily pressure on the mountain. Based on the Spokesman-Evaluate, fellow climber John Roskelley of Spokane, who later joined him on a K2 expedition, mentioned that different climbers all the time talked about how large and robust Whittaker was.
In 1965, Whittaker guided Sen. Robert F. Kennedy to the summit of Mount Kennedy in Canada’s Yukon Territory, a beforehand unclimbed peak named for President Kennedy. The 2 turned shut associates. Whittaker labored on RFK’s 1968 presidential marketing campaign and was on the senator’s bedside when he died after being shot in Los Angeles, based on NPR.
In 1978, Whittaker organized and led the expedition that achieved the primary American ascent of K2, the world’s second-tallest and one in every of its most harmful mountains.
A Legacy Past the Summit
Whittaker’s Everest climb helped gasoline a surge in American curiosity in mountaineering and out of doors recreation. His work at REI turned a small Seattle cooperative right into a nationwide enterprise, giving the out of doors business a recognizable face at a time when climbing was nonetheless an obscure pursuit.
He additionally used that platform to advocate for conservation. The co-op later credited his congressional testimony with serving to set up North Cascades Nationwide Park, the Pasayten Wilderness and Redwood Nationwide Park in California.
In 1990, on the tail finish of the Chilly Conflict, Whittaker organized the Mount Everest Worldwide Peace Climb, bringing collectively climbers from america, the Soviet Union and China. Twenty climbers reached the summit over 4 days. The workforce additionally hauled greater than two tons of rubbish off the mountain that earlier expeditions had left behind.
He and his brother co-founded Rainier Mountaineering Inc., which stays one of many nation’s premier mountain information providers. Whittaker summited Mount Rainier greater than 100 instances throughout his profession. He was additionally an completed sailor, competing twice within the 2,400-mile Victoria-to-Maui Worldwide Yacht Race. Lou Whittaker died in 2024 at age 95.
King County, Washington, declared Dec. 9 as “Jim Whittaker Day” in his honor.
Former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wrote on social media that Whittaker’s legacy was “simply as spectacular, and simply as lasting, as Mount Rainier itself.”
Jim Whittaker is survived by his spouse of 52 years, Dianne Roberts; sons Bobby, Joss and Leif Whittaker; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. He was preceded in loss of life by two sons, Carl and Scott.
Each American who has laced up their climbing boots, clipped right into a climbing harness or strapped on skis owes their gratitude to Whittaker, the veteran from Seattle who turned a life within the mountains right into a motion that reshaped how the nation spends its time outside.
