Tom Hornbein

Thomas "Tom" Hornbein is a well known American mountaineer.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1930, Hornbein developed an interest in geology as a teenager. His study of geology led to a fascination with mountains. Eventually he also became interested in medicine; he studied and worked as an anesthesiologist. He studied human physiological limits and performance at high altitude. He was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington from 1978 to 1993. His life was a link of medicine and mountaineering.

When Hornbein and his partner Willi Unsoeld attempted to climb Mount Everest in 1963, eight men had already reached the summit. Hornbein and Unsoeld were the first to attempt an ascent of the daunting West Ridge. Previously, ascents of the mountain had been made only via the South Col and Southeast Ridge or the North Col and Northeast Ridge.

On May 22, 1963 at 6:50 a.m. they left their camp and started the climb, and even though progress was very slow made it to the summit at 6:15 that night. They found themselves hours behind the generally accepted schedule and after spending 20 minutes at the top they began the descent. They used the South Col for the trip down deciding that it would be unwise to attempt a night descent via the extremely dangerous Yellow Band, which they had surmounted on the way up. Shortly after they started Unsoeld ran out of oxygen.

At 9:30 they came upon two other Americans from the same expedition, Barry Bishop and Lute Jerstad. Bishop and Jerstad had reached the summit earlier in the day using the more traveled South Col route and by this time were exhausted and nearly out of oxygen. The four climbers joined together on the descent and continued to make very slow progress until they felt it was too dangerous and stopped sometime after midnight.

They huddled together until 4:00 a.m. and started down again, meeting expedition members carrying extra tanks of oxygen. They made it to camp to find Unsoeld’s feet hard and frostbitten. Barry Bishop and Lute Jerstad also suffered from frost bite and Bishop and Unsoeld lost toes as a result.

Hornbein wrote about this night event in his book "Everest: The West Ridge": [translation from German…] "The night was overwhelming empty. The black silhouette of the Lhotse Mountain was lurking there, half to see, half to assume, and below of us. In general there was nothing – simply nothing. We hung in a timeless gap, pained by an intensive cold air – and had the idea not to be able to do anything but to shiver and to wait for the sun arising."

Hornbein named the Hornbein Couloir, a gap/track in the utmost upper part of the north wall, which Hornbein and Unsoeld passed. In his book Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer writes that "Hornbein's and Unsoeld's ascent was--and continues to be--deservedly hailed as one of the great feats in the annals of mountaineering."

In the year 2002 Hornbein, 72 yrs old, was still active as a Professor of Anesthesiology and as a mountaineer. In 2006, he moved from the Seattle area to Estes Park, CO.

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