Profiles: Erik Weihenmayer
You don't have to have perfect eyesight to have extraordinary vision
Feb 9, 2008
On September 5, 2002, just eighteen days before his 34th birthday, Erik Weihenmayer realized his dream of conquering the Seven Summits – climbing the highest peaks on each of the seven continents. Only 100 climbers in the world have accomplished this feat. At only 33, Erik held two special distinctions among that group. He was one of the youngest people ever to do this and he is the only blind man to have done this.
Erik was born with a disease of the eye’s nerve tissue known as retinoschisis. According to the Kellogg Eye Institute at the University of Michigan, “retinoschisis affects the retinal cells in the macula (the central fixation point of vision at the back of the eye). Retinoschisis is technically a form of macular degeneration. However there are different types of macular degeneration and many people diagnosed with macular degeneration do not have retinoschisis.“
Erik was legally blind as a child. The disease progressed into glaucoma and he had lost all of his vision by the age of thirteen. Erik and his family did not let his blindness limit the adventures they had together and Erik’s father constantly encouraged his son to challenge the conventional ideas of what a blind person can and cannot do. Ed Weihenmayer would take his sons hiking often and sent a young Erik to youth camps for the blind. This is where Erik first learned about mountain climbing and where the first seeds of adventure were planted in his mind and heart.
In 1987, the year he graduated from high school, Erik’s life of adventure began when he became the first blind person to hike the 50-mile Inca Trail into Machu Picchu. His adventures became grander and more amazing from there:
- In 1993, Erik crossed the Batura Glacier in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan.
- In 1995, Erik reached the 20,320’ summit of Mt. McKinley, North America’s highest peak..
- In 1997, he climbed his second continental summit, Africa’s Mt. Kilamanjaro.
- In 2001, Erik became the first blind man ever to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.
These are just a few of Erik’s accomplishments. Always eager to push himself, Erik is also a certified scuba and sky diver, a skier, a cyclist and a rock climber. He has ridden a tandem bike with his father from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and has scaled El Capitan, a 3300 foot sheer rock wall in Yosemite.
Erik has said of his mountain climbing expeditions, “Part of my motivation … was trying to understand this disease and its limitations. What can one expect from their life, living with glaucoma? If I can go to such high altitudes with such high pressure in my eyes….that’s pretty encouraging for everyone living with glaucoma.”
Erik has also written several books, including his autobiography, and speaks all over the country. He has given motivational speeches to Fortune 500 companies, colleges and universities, churches and other community organizations. In addition to his writing and speaking, Erik holds a Bachelor’s degree from Boston College and a Master’s degree in Middle School Education from Lesley College in Cambridge, MA.
When he is not scaling a mountain or on one of his other adventures, Erik lives outside of Denver, Colorado with his wife of eleven years, Ellen, whom he married at the 13,000’ mark of Kilimanjaro.
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