1910-

American mountain climber, cartographer, and explorer whose adventurers have taken him to mountain peaks around the world, often as the first man to reach and map them. He made climbs at such sites as Mount Rainer, the French Alps, and Mount Kennedy. He is also an accomplished aerial photographer, and has held the position of director of the Boston Museum of Science for several decades. In 1999, he was part of a research team that set the height of Mount Everest at 29,035 feet (8,850 m), a figure that the National Geographic Society has adopted as the official elevation.