Moniz began mountain climbing in Colorado during the 1980s. In 2010 he set the speed record with his son Matt Moniz for the fastest summit of the highest 50 points in all 50 US states doing so in 43 days, 3 hours, 51 minutes and 9 seconds. In 2012 Moniz announced a Mt. Everest summit bid and stated that before and after his climb, he would submit to a SPECT MRI scan to help research into the link between high altitude climbing and potential brain damage. The plan was to summit three different 8,000+ foot peaks within weeks of one another. That May, he successfully reached the summit of Mt. Everest and Lhotse (the world's fourth highest mountain) within 24 hours of each other. Upon this ascent, Moniz had climbed four of the Seven Summits.