>- Aconcagua2012
- Denali2013
- Everest2013
- Elbrus2012
- Kilimanjaro2008
- Kosciuszko2012
- Puncak Jaya (Carstensz Pyramid)2012
- Vinson2012
Cason Crane (born December 2, 1992) is an American entrepreneur and endurance athlete. In 2013, he became the first openly gay mountaineer to scale the Seven Summits.
Crane summited his first mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, as a 15-year-old freshman in high school with his mother. He described it as a “gateway mountain” which piqued his interest in mountaineering. As a junior, following the suicides of Tyler Clementi and one of Crane’s friends, he was inspired to raise awareness about suicide among LGBT youth through mountain climbing. This led him to start the Rainbow Summits Project, with the goal of climbing the Seven Summits in order to raise funds and awareness for the Trevor Project.
By the beginning of 2013, a year after starting the Rainbow Summits Project, Crane had successfully climbed five of the Seven Summits: Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mount Elbrus in Russia, Cerro Aconcagua in Argentina, Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia and Vinson Massif in Antarctica. On May 21, 2013, he reached the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal, guided by New Zealand climber Lydia Bradey, the first woman to summit Everest without using supplemental oxygen. Crane’s successful ascent of Denali in July 2013 at the age of 20 marked his completion of the Seven Summits. By the completion of the project, Crane had raised US$135,000 for the Trevor Project.