- Has always been afraid of heights.
- Still active in 2017 at age 88.
- Has led numerous, high-profile climbing expeditions, including the first ascent of Mt. Kennedy (with Senator Robert Kennedy) in the Canadian Yukon in 1965, the first American ascent of K2 in 1978, and the spectacularly successful Mt. Everest International Peace Climb in 1990.
- The first full-time employee of one of the country's largest outdoor retailers, Recreational Equipment, Inc. - REI - retiring as its President and CEO after 25 years with the company.
- The first American to summit Mt. Everest, the world's tallest mountain (May 1963). He was 34 years old.
- An accomplished blue-water sailor, having twice skippered his own boats on the 2,400-mile Victoria-to-Maui International Yacht Race.
- He and his wife Dianne Roberts, along with their two sons, made a four-year, 20,000-mile Pacific sailing journey to Australia and back to their home in Port Townsend, Washington, aboard their 54-foot steel ketch, Impossible.
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