Jim Whittaker

James Warren "Jim" Whittaker, the Seattle-born mountaineer who became the first American to stand on the summit of Mount Everest and who helped turn REI into a national outdoor co-op, died on 7 April 2026 at his home in Port Townsend, Washington. He was 97. His son Leif said he passed surrounded by family, in a bed looking out over the Olympic Mountains, Port Townsend Bay and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the landscape he loved.

Born on 10 February 1929 in Seattle, Whittaker grew up climbing with his twin brother Lou through the Boy Scouts and The Mountaineers. The brothers summited Mount Olympus as teenagers. After studying biology at Seattle University and serving as Special Forces instructors in the Army, teaching skiing and mountaineering, Jim became REI's first full-time employee on 25 July 1955. He later served as the co-op's president and CEO from 1971 to 1979, expanding stores far beyond Seattle and leaving a lasting imprint on American outdoor culture.

On 1 May 1963, as a member of Norman Dyhrenfurth's American Mount Everest Expedition, Whittaker and Sherpa Nawang Gombu, a nephew of Tenzing Norgay, reached the summit of Everest. They ran short of oxygen and fought storm and cornice on the descent, yet planted the American flag and returned as national figures. President John F. Kennedy awarded Whittaker the Hubbard Medal. Fame never narrowed his world. He guided Robert F. Kennedy up Canada's newly named Mount Kennedy in 1965, became a close friend, and later chaired RFK's Washington state presidential campaign. After the senator was shot in Los Angeles in 1968, Whittaker flew to comfort Ethel Kennedy.

He remained a builder of community as much as a climber. In 1990 he led the Earth Day 20 International Peace Climb, bringing American, Soviet and Chinese climbers together on Everest, putting twenty people on the summit and removing about two tons of trash. He testified for parks and wilderness, helping establish North Cascades National Park, Redwood National Park and the Pasayten Wilderness. His memoir, A Life on the Edge, and decades with The Mountaineers kept him close to the next generation. In 2013 he returned toward Everest with son Leif, then also a climber.

REI remembered him as a trailblazer whose courage was grounded in purpose. Washington Governor Bob Ferguson called him one of the great Washingtonians. Whittaker is survived by his wife Dianne Roberts and three of his five sons. Twin brother Lou died in 2024. From Boy Scout rope to the roof of the world, Big Jim measured success by the communities he built and the people he invited outside to discover something larger than themselves.