Vladas Vitkauskas
| Vladas Vitkauskas | |
|---|---|
| Born |
7 May 1953 Viduklė, Raseiniai district, Lithuania |
Vladas Vitkauskas (born on May 7, 1953 in Viduklė, Raseiniai district in Lithuania) became the first Lithuanian and the first mountaineer from the Baltic states to climb the world‘s highest mountain, Mt. Everest (8,848 m, May 10, 1993).
Between 1993 and 1996 Vitkauskas climbed the Seven Summits, the highest peaks of all the continents including Mt. Everest (Eurasia), Mt. McKinley (6,194 m, North America), Vinson Massif (4,897 m, Antarctica), Kilimanjaro (5,895 m, Africa), Mt. Kosciusko (2,228 m, Australia), Aconcagua (6,959 m, South America); also Elbrus (5,642 m, Caucasus) and Mont Blanc (4,807 m, Alps) in Europe. He was the first to raise the same national flag on each of them, in his case the Lithuanian flag. He organised his own trip to the Himalaya and climbed Mt. Everest alone, having registered as a photographer of the Nepalese Women Everest Expedition. He also made solo climbs to the peaks of Mt. McKinley and Aconcagua.
Vitkauskas has also climbed the highest peaks in the former Soviet Union: Mt. Communism (7,495 m, now Ismoil Somoni) and Korzhenevskaya (7,105 m) in 1989 and Lenin (7,134 m, now Avicenna) and Khan Tengri (6,995 m) in 1990. He participated and organised expeditions to the mountains in the Caucasus, Tien Shan, Altay, Siberia, and Pamir, and skiing expeditions in the Khibins (Kola Peninsula), the Arctic Circle, and the Bering Strait.
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Wikipedia