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Richard Bass

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Adventurer

The Resume

    (December 21, 1929-July 26, 2015)
    Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma
    Owner of the Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah
    First person to climb the Seven Summits -- the highest peak on each continent:
    Mount Everest in Asia
    Aconcagua in South America
    Denali (Mt. McKinley) in North America
    Kilimanjaro in Africa
    Mount Elbrus in Europe
    Vinson Massif in Antarctica
    Mount Kosciuszko in Australia

Why he might be annoying:

    He was nicknamed 'Largemouth Bass' for his non-stop talking.
    He planned the 'Seven Summits' challenge with Hollywood executive Frank Wells, but after six peaks (all but Everest), Wells dropped out to become the president of The Walt Disney Company.
    His and Wells' money bought some of the world's most experienced climbers to serve as guides.
    One mountaineer wrote that he 'essentially bought his way through the ultimate response to a midlife crisis.'
    Some climbers have argued that the seventh continent should be Oceania instead of Australia, and that the seventh summit should therefore be Puncak Jaya (the Carstensz Pyramid) in New Guinea.
    Under that definition, the first person to climb the Seven Summits would be mountaineer Pat Morrow.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He graduated from Yale with a degree in geology at age 16.
    He served in the US Navy during the Korean War.
    He pointed out that no matter how much money he and Wells had spent, they still had to actually climb those suckers: 'Look, we got ourselves up on our own two feet.'
    At the time of his ascent, he was the oldest person to climb Mount Everest at age 55 (April 30, 1985).
    As a response to a mid-life crisis, climbing Everest sounds cooler than buying a sports car and having an affair.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 73 Votes: 54.79% Annoying