Alan Hinkes OBE (born 26 April 1954) is an English Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. He is the first British mountaineer to claim all 14 Himalayan eight-thousanders (mountains above in height), which he did on 30 May 2005. 14 Eight-thousanders British record Hinkes is the first British mountaineer to claim to have summited all 14 mountains in the world with elevations greater than , known as the eight-thousanders, when he summited Kangchenjunga on 30 May 2005, aged 50 years and 34 days. It was first achieved by Reinhold Messner in 1986 (all without oxygen), and two decades later, Hinkes was only the 13th person to have claimed the feat, days after U.S. climber Ed Viesturs became the 12th person on 22 May 2005. It is an uncommon feat, as the ratio of deaths to summits on several eight-thousanders is at one-in-five (Annapurna, K2, Nanga Parbat, Kangchenjunga). This should not be interpreted as meaning that a "death-rate" is circa 20%, as the statistic ignores the number of attempts (and also partial attempts, and/or route stocking activity etc.). However, given that climbing the eight-thousanders requires multiple failed attempts (Hinkes took two attempts on average), and the most failures are usually on the most dangerous mountains, the risk of death in attempting all 14 eight-thousanders is material. Hinkes took 26 attempts to climb the 14 eight-thousanders (not counting his ascent of Shishapangma Central (West) in 1990), giving a first attempt success rate of circa 54%. Hinkes spent 21 years on his "Challenge 8000", starting with his ascent of Shishapangma in September 1987, and ending with his ascent of Kangchenjunga in May 2005. Hinkes is recorded as summiting Mount Everest on 19 May 1996. Observations He regards K2 as the hardest eight-thousander mountain ("an easy place to die"), which he climbed on his third attempt (he abandoned his first attempt, when closing in on the summit, to rescue a stricken Swedish climber). He ranks Kanchenjunga as the second hardest eight-thousander mountain, which he also climbed on his third attempt. As an eight-thousander climber, Hinkes has encountered death on his own expeditions, and on neighbouring expeditions. Several of his climbing partners subsequently died on mountains. A particular death that Hinkes notes was fellow U.K. climbing partner, Alison Hargreaves, who died on K2 in 1995, weeks after Hinkes had summited K2. Hinkes had to be air rescued from Nanga Parbat in July 1997