American Mountaineer and Filmmaker David Breashears Dies at Age 68

Pioneering mountaineer, climate advocate, and adventure filmmaker David Breashears was found deceased on Thursday, March 14 at his home in Massachusetts. He was 68 years old.

The news was confirmed by longtime members of the American climbing community Ed Viesturs, Kathy Harvard and Jed Williamson, all of whom were close with Breashears and his family. Outside also received a statement from Breashears’ family announcing the death.

It is with tremendous sadness that we share the news of David Breashears’ untimely passing. David was a beloved brother, uncle, father, friend, and colleague and a caring, impassioned advocate of adventure, exploration, and the health of our planet.

In his lifetime, David climbed to the summit of Mt. Everest five times, including an ascent with the IMAX camera in 1996. He combined his passion for climbing and photography to become one of the world’s most admired adventure filmmakers.

What fulfilled him the most – where he’d want his legacy to lie – is his non-profit organization, GlacierWorks, which he founded in 2007 to highlight the Himalayan glaciers through art, science, and adventure. With GlacierWorks, he used his climbing and photography experience to create unique records revealing the dramatic effects of climate change on the historic mountain range.

We want to thank everyone for their wonderful messages of support and love for David and understand that we respectfully ask for privacy as we grieve our loss.

Breashears was one of the most influential Americans in the world of Himalayan mountaineering. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as a climber and video documentarian on Mount Everest, and in 1983 Breashears transmitted the first live television images from the peak’s summit. Two years later Breashears again reached Mount Everest’s pinnacle, becoming the first American climber to make a repeat visit to the highest point on the planet.

In a 2008 interview with broadcast network Frontline, Breashears said he was the 135th person to reach the top of the world, and the experience forever changed him. “Looking back to 1983, it almost seems quaint. We had the entire south side of the mountain to ourselves, and not only did I know who my teammates were, but I also knew they had come to Everest with the careful preparation, experience and thorough training to climb it,” he said. “I remember feeling much closer to the mountain then, more in tune with the experience.”

Over the following decade Breashears helped millions of people learn about Mount Everest through his films and broadcasts. In 1997 he produced the first live audio Webcast from the summit for the documentary series NOVA as part of the film Everest: The Death Zone. The next year he released the feature film Everest, which became the first IMAX production from the peak, and one of the fastest-selling films shot in the high-resolution format. The film chronicled his 1996 expedition to the peak alongside American guide Viesturs, and explored the training that mountaineers follow prior to their expeditions, and the hazards they encounter along the route to the top. Everest generated more than $120 million in revenue, and transformed Breashears into a celebrity in the outdoor world. Writing for Outside in 2004, journalist Karen Heyman called Breashears the “James Cameron of the IMAX set.”

In a 1997 interview, Breashears said he was fascinated by extreme altitude and its impact on the human body and brain. In his films, he said, he wanted to explore how hypoxia impacts a person’s judgement. “A climber at high altitude is the last person to know that their thinking and thought processes are probably impaired,” he said. “There’s not an angel on your shoulder saying, ‘knock knock, beware, you’re not thinking clearly.’”

Breashears shot Everest during 1996 climbing season, and witnessed the deadly blizzard that killed eight climbers and was later chronicled by author Jon Krakauer in the Outside feature and best-selling book Into Thin Air. Breashears helped with the rescue and recovery of climbers after the incident, and his experience led to another Everest film, the 2008 Frontline documentary Storm Over Everest. The film included interviews with survivors, video from the 1996 expedition, and recreated scenes of the storm and rescue efforts.

Speaking to Frontline, Breashears said he felt it was necessary to retell the story via film and not just words to try and help viewers understand the tragedy. “For me, to see and hear direct testimony from a person who has overcome such adversity, has survived such a difficult and stressful event, is very powerful,” he said. “There is something so much more poignant about seeing a person’s face and looking into their eyes and hearing their voice than just reading about them on a written page.”

He pursued a prolific career in filmmaking, racking up credits as a cinematographer, cameraman, and producer on nearly two-dozen films, including the Hollywood blockbusters Cliffhanger and Seven Years in Tibet. 

Breashears was not done with telling the story of the 1996 disaster, and in 2015 he served as a co-producer and consultant on the Hollywood film Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, and Jason Clarke. He was also on the peak in 2015 filming a documentary when an earthquake sent debris and ice crashing down onto Base Camp, killing 19 people.

In recent years Breashears had turned his attention to the impacts of climate change on the Himalayan region. He founded an advocacy group called GlacierWorks, which documented glacial retreat across the region through still photography and video. He displayed his images in galleries across the world to show viewers how quickly the region was being transformed. Through his work with GlacierWorks, Breashears gave lectures and talks across the world to educate audiences about the impact of the warming climate. “It’s a very easy thing to do, awareness. You can go find two pictures on a website and say that you’re creating awareness, while the real hard work is taking people from awareness to impact,” Breashears said in a 2014 interview. “That’s why taking this imagery and moving it to exhibits, or to scientists at NASA, is important.”

Breashears grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and was a great rock and ice climber, turning heads early as a youth in Eldorado Canyon. As told in a 2022 story in Climbing, Breashears earned the nickname “Kloeberdanz Kid” after a speedy ascent of the challenging route Kloeberdanz, 5.11c R in Eldorado Canyon at just 18 years old. His visionary 1975 first ascents of the difficult and committing routes Krystal Klyr and Perilous Journey, both 5.11b X, with the X for great danger in the event of a fall, remain legend. Among their other mountaineering feats, in winter 1982 Breashears and Jeff Lowe made the first ascent of the 4500-foot north face of Kwangde Lho (6011 meters) via a hard and technical route on extremely steep rock and ice. The face was unrepeated until 2001.