Background
Richard Bass was born on December 21, 1929 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His father, Harry W. Bass, Senior, was a co-founder of the Goliad Corporation and the Goliad Oil and Gas Corporation.
Richard Bass was born on December 21, 1929 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His father, Harry W. Bass, Senior, was a co-founder of the Goliad Corporation and the Goliad Oil and Gas Corporation.
He enrolled at Yale University at 16 and graduated in 1950 with a degree in geology.
He was the owner of Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah and the first man to climb the "Seven Summits," the tallest mountain on each continent. He had a brother, Harry West. Bass, Junior. Bass moved with his family to Texas in 1932.
Bass was educated at the Highland Park High School in Dallas, Texas.
After completing some graduate work at the University of Texas, Bass served two years with the United States. Navy on board the aircraft carrier United States Ship Essex during the Korean War. Bass returned to Texas in 1953 to join in the running of the family oil and gas business and ranching operations.
He was the owner of ranches in Central Texas. During the 1960s, Dick invested $10,000 in the development of the ski resort in Vail, Colorado.
He also built the largest private residence in Vail, and invited President Gerald Ford to winter there with his family.
He served on the Board of Directors of Vail Associates, Incorporated from 1966 to 1971. Bass opened the Snowbird Ski Resort with investor Ted Johnson in 1971. He was its sole proprietor until he sold his stake in May 2014.
Together with Frank Wells, one-time president of Walt Disney, Bass conceived of the adventure challenge of summiting each of the seven continents: Denali (Mountain McKinley), North America.
Aconcagua, South America. Mountain. Elbrus, Europe; Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa.
Vinson Massif, Antarctica. Mount Kosciuszko, Australia.
And Mountain. Everest, Asia.
At the time, he was also the oldest person to have climbed Mountain. Everest. The ascent has been somewhat controversial. Bass"s list puts Mount Kosciuszko as the tallest in Australia, but climber Patrick Morrow has put forward that that the tallest mountain in Oceania (which includes Australia) is instead the more difficult Puncak Jaya.
Jon Krakauer"s book Into Thin Air opines that Bass"s ascent of Mount Everest pulled the mountain into a "postmodern era" wherein commercial guided expeditions became big business and encouraged climbers with limited experience to pay large sums of money to these enterprises in order to ascend Everest.
Bass died on July 26, 2015 in Dallas, Texas from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.