By Colleen Thomas From Tribune News Service At 16, Tim Ballard had a crazy idea. The youngest of seven children, he wanted to do something big with his family. Really big. “I thought, ‘How cool would it be to climb Kilimanjaro?’” recalled Ballard, who is now a college student in Utah. Big was the right…

Arthur Muir is nonchalant about the record he holds as the oldest American to climb Mount Everest at age 75. He reached the summit of the world’s highest peak on May 23 of this year, not while eying the glory of breaking a record, but rather with the humble yet steady thought of achieving a…

LA PAZ, Bolivia—Bolivian rescue workers said Saturday they have recovered the body of a U.S. climber who died at about 6,200 meters (more than 20,000 feet) altitude near the peak of the Illimani mountain. The name of the 24-year-old climber was not immediately released. Death was “probably because of a pulmonary edema” rather than an…