Ronald Quintero (mountaineer)

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Ronald Quintero (born 1981) is a Honduran mountaineer and endurance athlete. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, United States, where he also works as a CrossFit coach. In May 2022, Quintero became the first Honduran to summit Mount Everest. During the same expedition, he also summited Mount Lhotse, becoming the first Central American to climb both mountains within a single expedition.

Early life and education

Quintero was born in 1981 in Camasca, a rural municipality in the Intibucá Department of Honduras, near the border with El Salvador. In 1997, at the age of 16, he moved to the United States and settled in Berkeley, California. He later earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration, with a concentration in marketing management and entrepreneurship, from California State University, East Bay.

Mountaineering career

Quintero began mountaineering in 2012 with an ascent of Mount Whitney (4,421 m) in California. He continued his progression with climbs of Mount Rainier (4,392 m) in 2015 and Mount Elbrus (5,642 m) in December 2016. In 2017, he summited Aconcagua (6,962 m) in February and Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 m) in October. He later reached the summit of Denali (6,190 m) via the West Buttress route on 29 May 2019.

In 2021, Quintero began preparations for an expedition to Mount Everest via the South Col route on the Nepalese side. The expedition commenced in March 2022 and involved several weeks of acclimatization at Everest Base Camp (5,364 m) and multiple rotations to higher camps. On 12 May 2022, at approximately 4:30 a.m. Nepal time, Quintero reached the summit of Mount Everest (8,848 m), becoming the first Honduran to do so. After descending to the South Col, he continued to Mount Lhotse and reached its summit (8,516 m) on 13 May 2022 at around 6:30 a.m. The combined ascent was completed in under 26 hours, marking the first time a Central American climber summited both Everest and Lhotse during a single expedition.

By 2022, Quintero had completed ascents of five of the Seven Summits. Following his Everest–Lhotse expedition, he received public recognition in Honduras for his mountaineering achievements.

Athletic training and coaching

In addition to mountaineering, Quintero has worked as a CrossFit coach for more than nine years. His training methodology incorporates strength and endurance conditioning, which he applies to preparation for high-altitude mountaineering and ultra-endurance challenges. He has also participated in fundraising fitness challenges, including completing 1,100 burpees in a single session to support local charitable initiatives.

Television appearances

Quintero has appeared on multiple reality television programs focused on endurance and survival. He was a finalist in the first season of NBC’s Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge and later competed in its second season during 2016–2017. In 2023, he participated in the first season of TBS’s I Survived Bear Grylls, winning one of the competition’s episodes.