EverestHistory.com: Chris Pizzo

The study of high-altitude illness, both its obvious and hidden causes, as well as its detrimental and sometimes fatal affects on the human body has brought a dedicated and adventurous brand of physician to Everest over the years. Some are drawn by the need to experience the illness and to study it first-hand. Some are drawn by the thrill of the mountain itself and some by a bit of both.

For Dr. Christopher Pizzo that meeting of medical and mountaineering occurred on Oct 24, 1981 when he summited Everest as a member of John West's American Medical Research Expedition. Pizzo took measurements of conditions, including the first ever direct measurement of the atmospheric pressure (one of the presumed culprits in high-altitude illness) atop Everest.

Pizzo was the 110th person and the tenth American to summit Everest. His mountaineering career also includes summits of Aconcagua in South America, the Peak of Communism, the highest mountain in the former USSR, as well as several other 20,000-plus foot peaks in the Himalayas. He was the second American to climb three of the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter mountains including Shishapangma (Tibet) and Makalu.

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