This is part IV of this series on determining who are the greatest climbers of all time. You can catch up on reading at the beginning by clicking here: Greatest Climbers.

Yesterday, on Facebook, I shared a rubric to help determine who are the best climbers of all time. I’m working to narrow the list to the greatest climbers — meaning only five and no more than 10. But first, I wanted to share with you the full list of the 43 climbers that you have suggested might be among the greatest. They’re listed in alphabetical order.

1. Amedeo, Luigi
2. Anker, Conrad
3. Beckey, Fred
4. Bielecki, Adam
5. Bonatti, Walter
6. Boardman, Peter
7. Boukreev, Anatoli
8. Brown, Joe
9. Buhl, Hermann
10. Caldwell, Tommy
11. Cassin, Riccardo
12. Desio, Ardito
13. Diemberger, Kurt
14. Haston, Dougal
15. House, Steve
16. Humar, Tomaž
17. Kaltenbrunner, Gerlinde
18. Kor, Layton
19. Kukuczka, Jerzy
20. Kurtyka, Voytek
21. Loretan, Erhard
22. Lowe, Alex
23. Messner, Reinhold
24. Paradis, Marie
25. Park Young-Seok
26. Pasaban, Edurne
27. Peck, Annie Smith
28. Prezelj, Marko
29. Rebuffat, Gaston
30. Rutkiewicz, Wanda
31. Scott, Doug
32. Sharma, Chris
33. Shipton, Eric
34. Steck, Ueli
35. Tasker, Joe
36. Terray, Lionel
37. Tillman, Bill
38. Urubko, Denis
39. Viesturs, Ed
40. Whillians, Don
41. Wielicki, Krzysztof
42. Wiessner, Fritz
43. Workman, Fanny Bullock

I’m a little concerned, as Katie Ives indicated, that we might be underrepresented in some respects. The only climber from China, Korea, Japan, Nepal, India, Pakistan and that region of Asia I have named thus far is the late Park Young-Seok. He was the first person to climb all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks, the Seven Summits and reach both poles (the so-called Grand Slam of Mountaineering.)

Also, I will be making a naming the greatest female climbers of all time in a separate list. Women climbers have faced unique, and in many ways harder, challenges in the sport over the past century and they deserve to be featured in a way that honors and celebrates their accomplishments.  I may solicit and add more names for consideration, and a rubric must be a drawn up. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this.

I appreciate you stopping by for a read once again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook and Twitter.

Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

Click here to view the next post in this series.