Lute Jerstad

Three weeks earlier, on May 1, Jim Whittaker and Indian mountaineer Nawang Gombu, who was of Sherpa origin, had reached the summit, placing an American flag there.

"[2] Later that day, they met up with fellow expedition members Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld, who had just completed the first ascent of Everest by the West Ridge route, and the first traverse of the mountain.

The four climbers made a frigid high-altitude bivouac at 28,000 feet without tents, sleeping bags or supplemental oxygen, and survived only because it was not a windy night.

After a short career as a college professor, he started Lute Jerstad Adventures, a trekking, river rafting and mountaineering service.

[3][4] Jerstad died of a heart attack on October 31, 1998, in Nepal on Kala Patthar, a peak that offers excellent views of Mount Everest.