Adrian Ballinger


Adrian Ballinger is a certified IFMGA/AMGA mountain guide, certified through the American Mountain Guides Association. Ballinger has been guiding full-time for 15 years, and has led over 100 international climbing expeditions on five continents. Ballinger, along with Himalayan Experience's founder, Russell Brice, has been featured on the Discovery Channel's series. Ballinger worked for Himex until 2012. Ballinger founded Alpenglow Expeditions and has worked as guide for it. Adrian is noted for pioneering the use of pre-acclimation for commercial expeditions as early as 2014, which can cut the amount of on-site time half compared to a typical Everest summit bid expedition. Ballinger has also gone on climbs sponsored by the Eddie Bauer company. In 2016 and 2017 he went on Everest expeditions with Cory Richards, and in 2017 Adrian reached the summit from the Tibet/China/North route without using bottled oxygen.

About

Ballinger has led clients up Everest, Manaslu, Lhotse, Ama Dablam, Cho Oyu, and Makalu. During the 2010 climbing season on Mt. Everest, Ballinger summited the mountain twice in three weeks, first on May 5 and then again on May 22. On his May 5 summit, Ballinger was the first non-Sherpa of the season to summit as he fixed ropes, replaced anchors, and removed old ropes from the mountain in partnership with 9 Sherpa. Also in 2010, Ballinger led an Alpenglow Expeditions Clean Up Expedition on Ama Dablam. This team, along with summitting the mountain, removed thousands of feet of old fixed rope from the route, along with hundreds of pounds of trash from the camps. They also provided outreach to Sherpa and members of other climbing teams to teach the use of human waste disposal kits while on the mountain, and donated human waste disposal bags to many of those teams. In 2011, he repeated his feat of summiting Everest twice in only a few weeks and added his first summit of Lhotse to that schedule as well. Ballinger has led successful expeditions to more than 25 Himalayan summits over 6000 meters, including twelve ascents of Ama Dablam, which is a highly technical 6800m peak next to Everest. Since 2007, he has guided clients to the summit of Everest 6 times, Manaslu 4 times, and Cho Oyu and Lhotse once each. He has also led an expedition to Makalu, the world's fifth tallest peak.
Ballinger has also guided on Kilimanjaro, Denali, Alpamayo, Huascarán Sur, Cotopaxi, and many other expeditions including multiple ascents on Orizaba, Wayna Potosí, Kitarahu, Chopicalqui, Chimborazo, Cayambe, Mt. Blanc, Mt. Elbrus, Island Peak, Lobuche Peak, Mera Peak and many North American peaks.
Ballinger's personal ascents include technical alpine-style climbs on the South Ridge of Pumo Ri, the West Face of Kayish, and the NE Ridge of Huascaran Norte. Ballinger also ski, ice, and rock guides in his dual “hometowns” of Squaw Valley, California and Chamonix, France, guiding in the Mt Blanc region for Chamonix Experience.
Ballinger has been featured in numerous climbing and skiing industry articles and press.

2016/17 Everest climb

Adrian Ballinger and Cory Richards were sponsored by Eddie Bauer to do an Everest climb, and they relayed information from the Everest climb using the smartphone software application and service called Snapchat. Mount Everest has had a 3G wireless data communication network since 2010. This effort was repeated in 2017, Ballinger summitted without supplementary oxygen, but Richards had to resort to an oxygen tank for the final push to the summit.

Everest summits and other noted achievements

Adrian has summited Mount Everest six times up prior to 2016, and also made it almost to the top that year.
Example Everest summitings:
Lhotse:
Ama Dablam summiting examples:
Adrian also went on a record breaking expedition to Cho Oyu.