Adrian Ballinger - Climbing Mt. Everest & K2 Without Supplemental Oxygen

Adrian Ballinger - Climbing Mt. Everest &amp; K2 Without Supplemental Oxygen | Brought to you by Alta Ski Area "I was heli-ski guiding in Alaska, and through a series of communications breakdowns between me my co-guide and my pilot, we ended up getting out of a helicopter my 6 clients me and a co-guide, and it turned out we were on top of a cornice. The cornice broke 18 feet back as the helicopter lifted off. Me and 2 clients were on the wrong side of that break and took an 1800- foot fall. The first 200 feet over cliffs, and then through a huge avalanche runout zone, two people buried, a bunch of broken bones between all of us, and really bad injuries. Took a long time to get comfortable around cornices again." - Adrian Ballinger "Made it really close. I was probably 400 vertical feet from the summit, at well over 28,500 feet. I got to the point where I couldn’t feel my hands to behind my wrists, So I could no longer clip devices onto the fixed rope. So then I had to solo because I couldn’t use the rope. I was still going up, and Im soloing, and I cant feel my hands, started to think about the consequences of frostbite when I have a girlfriend who is a professional rock climber. It still took a long time, but I did ultimately decide to turn around… Im sure thats what saved my toes and fingers." - Adrian Ballinger Adrian Ballinger's list of accomplishments is over-the-top. It's too much. Here are some of his career highlights. First person to ski Manaslu from the summit (6th tallest peak in world) Only American with 3 complete 8000m ski descents 4th American to summit Everest and K2 without supplemental oxygen (first in 25 years) 8 summits of Mt Everest, 13 seasons on the mountain, over 100 clients on top 17 total 8000-meter peak summits&nbsp; 6 total 8000-meter peak ski attempts Summited Mt. Everest twice within 3- weeks on 2 separate occasions Guided/led more than 150 international expeditions Founder of Alpenglow Expeditions, in 2004 Guided on Kilimanjaro (14 times by 4 different routes), Denali (by the West Rib), Alpamayo (14 times by 3 different routes), Cotopaxi (more than 30 times), and many other expeditions on many other high peaks all over the world. Ballinger has also led successful expeditions to more than 25 Himalayan summits over 6000 meters, including twelve ascents of Ama Dablam, which is a highly technical 6800m peak next to Everest. <span style="color: rgb(10,19,22);background-color: