Expansion around the world

Mountaineers, circa 1900

Focus shifted toward the exploration of other ranges such as the Pyrenees and the Caucasus Mountains; the latter owed much to the initiative of D. W. Freshfield who was the first man to conquer the summit of Mount Kazbek. Most of its great peaks were successfully conquered by the late 1880s.


Mountaineering in the Americas became popular in the 1800s. In North America, Pikes Peak (14,410 ft (4,390 m)) in the Colorado Rockies, was first climbed by Edwin James and two others in 1820. Though lower than Pikes Peak, the heavily glaciated Fremont Peak (13,745 ft (4,189 m)) in Wyoming was thought to be the tallest mountain in the Rockies when it was first climbed by John C. Frémont and two others in 1842. Pico de Orizaba (18,491 ft (5,636 m)), the tallest peak in Mexico and third tallest in North America, was first summited by U.S. military personnel which included William F. Raynolds and a half dozen other climbers in 1848. Heavily glaciated and more technical climbs in North American were not achieved until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1897, Mount Saint Elias (18,008 ft (5,489 m)) on the Alaska-Yukon border was summited by the Duke of the Abruzzi and party. But it was not until 1913 that Mount Mckinley (20,237 ft (6,168 m)), the tallest peak in North America, was successfully climbed. Mount Logan (19,551 ft (5,959 m)), the tallest peak in Canada, was first summitted by a half dozen climbers in 1925 in an expedition that took more than two months.

The exploration of the highest Andes in South America begun in 1879-1880, when Whymper climbed Chimborazo (20,564 ft (6,268 m)) and explored the mountains of Ecuador. The Cordillera between Chile and Argentina was visited by Paul Güssfeldt in 1883, who ascended the volcano Maipo (17,270 ft (5,260 m)) and attempted to climb the tallest mountain in the Americas, Aconcagua (22,837 ft (6,961 m)) that same year but was unsuccessful. The summit of Aconcagua was finally reached in 1897 by Matthias Zurbriggen during an expedition led by Edward FitzGerald that lasted several months. The Andes of Bolivia were first explored by Sir William Martin Conway in 1898, who later visited the mountains of Tierra del Fuego on the southern tip of South America.

New Zealand's Southern Alps were first visited in 1882 by the Reverend Green and in 1894 Tom Fyfe and party climbed Aoraki / Mount Cook. By the turn of the century, mountaineering had acquired a more international flavour;[10] Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa was climbed in 1889 by Ludwig Purtscheller and Hans Meyer, Mt. Kenya in 1899 by Halford Mackinder,[11] and a peak of Ruwenzori by H. J. Moore in 1900.