7 is a number that, it seems, has caught humanity's attention throughout history, considered a magic number because it's made up of the sacred 3 and the earthly 4, thus establishing a bridge between heaven and earth. The 4 is associated with the earth and its four elements and four cardinal points, and combined with the sacred 3, symbolizing perfection, we arrive at 7, which represents the totality of the universe in motion. There are seven days of the week and seven seas on the planet. On the subject of religion, according to the Bible, God took seven days to create the Earth, and for Hindus there are seven chakras or energy points in the body. A cat has seven lives, there are seven wonders of the world, the seven deadly sins, the seven colors of the rainbow, and even Snow White's dwarfs, and so I arrived at the idea of talking about the 7 summits, as they are the highest mountains.
I think it's clear that the number seven shows up prominently in different situations and settings; as many know, the Seven Summits are the highest mountains on each of the six continents, including the highest in South America and in North America.
At first, it took a while to agree on which are the 7 summits to climb, or put another way, there are different lists. To start, we already run into trouble defining how many continents there are — 5, 6, 7? At first it was thought there were 5 continents: Europe, Asia, America, Africa and Oceania. Some time later the 6-continent model became more popular (with Antarctica added to the previous ones). But of course, human beings have restless minds, so why not think of 7!! 7 summits, 7 continents. Now one more was added to the previous 6, or rather, one was split — America — and we ended up with North America and South America (or Latin America). We don't know whether it will stop there or whether we'll discover a new continent.
As with the continents, different opinions have also been heard about which mountains should count as the 7 summits, and what's clear is that in the end there are several different lists. According to different interpretations of geographic, geological and geopolitical continental boundaries, there is no consensus on which are the seven summits, so in reality there are nine mountains that could make up that list (Everest, Mont Blanc, Elbrus, Aconcagua, McKinley, Carstensz, Kosciuszko, Mount Vinson, Kilimanjaro).
For a long time, Mont Blanc (4,810 masl) was considered the highest mountain in Europe, and with the development of geographic expeditions, it was found that this title in fact belonged to Mount Elbrus, at 5,642 masl, in the northern Caucasus.
Australia's highest peak is Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 masl), but it is lower than Aoraki / Mount Cook (3,754 masl) in New Zealand, and even lower than Nemangkawi / Mount Jaya, which rises to 4,884 masl, in the Indonesian province of Papua, on the island of New Guinea. The first list of the seven summits, known as the Bass List or Kosciuszko List, was proposed by Richard Bass in 1980, and it selects Australia's highest mountain (Mount Kosciuszko, 2,228 masl) as the highest in Oceania.
American climber Richard Bass was the first climber to reach the summit of these mountains (according to his Kosciuszko List), from 1983 to 1985. He was the first to complete the Six Summits Challenge, since Aconcagua is considered the tallest mountain on the American continent, not counting subcontinents, given the idea of one highest peak per continent; and it was the Canadian Pat Morrow who was the first climber to achieve it, from 1981 to 1986.
Later, it was Messner who proposed an alternative list to the Bass List, replacing Oceania's Mount Kosciuszko with the Carstensz Pyramid, also known as Mount Jaya or Nemangkawi. Mount Jaya is more difficult than Mount Kosciuszko.
By majority agreement, this is established as the most widely accepted list for understanding which are the 7 highest summits of the 7 continents (Messner List):
- Elbrus in Europe (Mont Blanc was used at one time).
- Kilimanjaro in Africa.
- Aconcagua in South America.
- Mount Vinson in Antarctica.
- Everest in Asia.
- McKinley or Denali in North America.
- Carstensz Pyramid in Oceania (Kosciuszko was used at one time).
Ever since I discovered my passion for mountains, after reading, as a teenager, the book "Ghosts of Everest, the Search for Mallory," I've always been passionate about learning about the world's highest mountains. And who hasn't imagined pulling off such a feat? This fascinating subject stirs my emotions, I dream of climbing those mountains, and to accompany those dreams, today we have access to an enormous amount of information from those who have already walked these paths. If it's your goal, enjoy the journey...
