First person to reach Earth's highest and lowest points

Without leaving our planet's surface, Victor Vescovo (USA) has covered the most vertical distance of any other person. He summitted the 8,848-metre-tall (20,029-foot) Mount Everest (aka Sagarmatha or Chomolungma) – Earth's highest point – at 8.20 a.m. local time on 24 May 2010. He then reached the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean – Earth's lowest point – in the deep-sea submersible Limiting Factor on 28 April 2019. A total time of 8 years 186 days elapsed between these accomplishments.

Private equity investor and former naval officer Vescovo has also achieved the Explorers' Grand Slam (Last Degree), which involves climbing the Seven Summits (the highest mountain on each continent) and reaching the North and South Poles.

Vescovo was guided on his climb of Everest by Kami Rita Sherpa (Nepal), who has climbed Everest more times than any other person: 24 times as of 21 May 2019.

The descent to the Challenger Deep was part of Vescovo's Five Deeps Challenge, which set out to reach the lowest points in every ocean. He completed the challenge on 24 August 2019 after successfully descending 5,551 m (18,212 ft) into the Molloy Deep/Hole, the deepest-known point in the Arctic Ocean.