Jim Whittaker, First American to Reach Everest’s Summit, Dies at 97

As an executive with the outdoor-supply retailer REI and an experienced climber, he conquered Mount Everest in 1963, when fewer than 10 people were known to have done so.Jim Whittaker in 1975, before his unsuccessful attempt to summit K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. More than a decade earlier, he had successfully topped Mount Everest, the first American to do so.