Erik Weihenmayer

Erik Weihenmayer (born 1968) is an American athlete, adventurer, author, activist and motivational speaker. He was the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on 25 May 2001, an achievement that put him on the cover of Time magazine. He completed the Seven Summits in September 2002, one of only 150 mountaineers at that time to do so and the only blind climber, and in 2008 he added the Carstensz Pyramid, completing the Eight Summits. He climbed the Nose of El Capitan in Yosemite in 1996 and ascended Losar, an 820 metre vertical ice face in the Himalayas, in 2008. In 2005 he co-founded No Barriers, a nonprofit organization.