Mountain climber Ed Hommer, of Duluth, Minn, was killed September 23 by a falling rock on Washington State's Mount Rainier. Ed was training for his second attempt to become the first double amputee to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak.

Ed will be missed by the many people whose lives he touched. Ed, an American Airlines pilot, had three children and had been climbing for 26 years.

Ed understood the risks involved in climbing. "The mountain ultimately decides who succeeds, who fails, who goes home and who doesn't," he said last year after failing to reach Mount Everest's summit. During the same interview, he announced he would return to the Himalayas.

Ed nearly died on Mount McKinley in 1981 when his small commercial plane crashed on the Alaska mountain. He and three passengers were trapped for five days by a winter storm. When it was over, Ed lost the lower part of both legs to frostbite. But he didn't let the accident stop him. Fitted with prostheses, Ed became the first double amputee to receive a medical certification to fly commercial airliners. Besides returning to flying, Ed also returned to climbing. He became the first double amputee to climb Mount McKinley in 1999. Last October, his first attempt to scale Everest was called off when he and his team, hampered by bad weather, had to turn back 3,000 feet short of the summit.

Ed was an amazing inspiration to those with disabilities. He helped many people. Ed formed the nonprofit foundation High Exposure to help get prostheses to those who need them in Nepal and to raise money for U.S. children who have lost limbs and need prostheses.

But probably most significantly, Ed loved to climb. He loved the mountains.

— Courtesy, EverestQuest.com