Legendary mountaineer Huh Young-ho dies at 71

Huh Young-ho, the legendary Korean mountaineer who reached the highest peaks on all seven continents as well as both poles, died Monday at 71. Born in Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province, in 1954, he had been battling bile duct cancer since December.

A graduate of Jecheon High School, Cheongju University, and Korea University’s graduate school, Huh launched his serious mountaineering career with a 1982 ascent of Makalu (8,463 meters) in the Himalayas. The following year, he completed a solo climb of Manaslu (8,163 meters), a peak often called the “mountain of death” among climbers.

On December 22, 1987, Huh became the second Korean to summit Mount Everest (8,848 meters), following Ko Sang-don, and the first to do so in winter. According to ExplorersWeb, a leading expedition website, only 15 of the 12,015 people who had reached Everest’s summit by 2023 accomplished the feat in winter. “Winter ascents of Everest are far tougher than any statistic suggests,” the site noted.

Even after his wife passed away in 2010, Huh’s passion for Everest remained strong. He climbed the mountain again with his son, Jae-seok, who said, “I wanted to send my mother off from our family’s first travel destination.” In 2017, at age 63, Huh set a domestic record as Korea’s oldest Everest summiteer and holds the national record with six ascents.

Huh gained international fame in 1995 after becoming the third person worldwide to reach all three poles: the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of Mount Everest. He also climbed Aconcagua (6,960 meters), Denali (6,194 meters), Kilimanjaro (5,895 meters), Carstensz Pyramid (4,884 meters), Elbrus (5,642 meters), and Vinson Massif (5,140 meters), completing the Seven Summits challenge.

The government awarded him the Cheongryong Medal, the highest sports honor, in 1996, following earlier recognitions with the Girin (1982), Geosang (1988), and Maengho (1991) medals.

Pursuing a childhood dream of becoming a pilot, Huh earned a microlight aircraft license in 1998. He completed a solo 1,000-kilometer flight from Yeoju to Jeju in 2008, followed by an 1,800-kilometer journey in 2011 that circled the country from Dokdo to Marado, Gageodo, and back to Jecheon.


김정훈 기자 hun@donga.com