With its 29,000-feet Himalayan summit, Mount Everest in Asia remains the world's most coveted summit for mountaineers. Those who have survived the challenge of climbing it, have immortalized its raging weather and exhausting steepness to a public increasingly fascinated with extreme adventures in far-off places. The popularity of Everest and other Himalayan summits has, however, overshadowed the highest peaks that crown each of the other six continents: Carstensz Pyramid in Oceania, Vinson Massif in Antarctica, Mount Elbrus in Europe, Kilimanjaro in Africa, Denali in North America, and the most imposing of them all, Mount Aconcagua in South America.
Located in Argentina, 23,000-feet Mount Aconcagua — whose name means the Stone Sentinel in one of the languages of the Inca Empire — is the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. Its majestic peak, right in the middle of the 4,500-mile-long Andes cordillera, has attracted people's imagination for centuries. Swiss national Mathias Zurbriggen was the first mountaineer to successfully climb Aconcagua in 1897. Since then, thousands of climbers from all over the world have embarked on a treacherous three-week journey to reach the Roof of the Americas.
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