Vladas Vitkauskas

Who is Vladas Vitkauskas?

Vladas Vitkauskas became the first Lithuanian and the first mountaineer from the Baltic states to climb the world‘s highest mountain, Mt. Everest.

Between 1993 and 1996 Vitkauskas climbed the Seven Summits, the highest peaks of all the continents including Mt. Everest, Mt. McKinley, Vinson Massif, Kilimanjaro, Mt. Kosciusko, Aconcagua; also Elbrus and Mont Blanc in Europe. He was the first to raise the same national flag on each of them, in his case the Lithuanian flag. He organised his own trip to the Himalaya and climbed Mt. Everest alone, having registered as a photographer of the Nepalese Women Everest Expedition. He also made solo climbs to the peaks of Mt. McKinley and Aconcagua.

Vitkauskas has also climbed the highest peaks in the former Soviet Union: Mt. Communism and Korzhenevskaya in 1989 and Lenin and Khan Tengri in 1990. He participated and organised expeditions to the mountains in the Caucasus, Tien Shan, Altay, Siberia, and Pamir, and skiing expeditions in the Khibins, the Arctic Circle, and the Bering Strait.