Veikka Gustafsson Completes 17 Year Endeavour

The Finnish climber Veikka Gustafsson, on Sunday Morning reached the summit of Gasherbrum I, making him the ninth person in the world to complete all 14 of the 8,000 metre peaks without supplementary oxygen.

The 41 year old has taken 17 years to complete the feat, having made six of his summits with the only American to have climbed all 14 and without  oxygen - Ed Viesturs.

After reaching base camp on Sunday morning (local time) Veikka stated '17 years of freezing wind and glacier conditions, - now that's done and finished. It's time to move on.'

The final summit was obtained with Japanese climbing partner Kazuya Hiraide who received a Piolet d'Or this year for his succesful first ascent of the South-West face of Kamet with Kei Taniguchi (7756m, India) in alpine style.

Also to reach the summit on the same day as Veikka were the Bulgarian climbers Nikolay Petkov, Doychin Boyanov, Boyan Petrov, Nikolay Valkov.

Source - tammisuo.fi

Image courtesy - Veikka Gustafsson