Richard Bass, first person to climb highest peak on each continent, dies at 85 August 04 2015

Richard Bass, a poetry-spouting Texas oilman who was the first climber to scale the highest peak on each of the seven continents and for a time was the oldest to top Mount Everest.

“They resent some 55-year-old yahoo from Texas climbing these mountains they’d dreamed about,” he said. “When I see guides now, they hug me because the seven summits made the mountain-guiding profession. It made them!”

Mr. Bass, who said he “never planned to climb anything, except out of bed in the morning,” was 51 when he started his record-setting expeditions.

[Washington Post]