Tom Hornbein

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Thomas "Tom" Hornbein (born November 6, 1930 in St. Louis , Missouri ) is an American mountaineer .

Life

Hornbein first studied geology . Then, after thinking about the interactions from great heights on the human body, he went on to study medicine. He began his medical career as an anesthetist . From 1978 to 1993 he was Dean of Anaesthesiology at the University of Seattle . Before Hornbein took part in his first Himalayan expedition to Masherbrum in 1960, he was mainly active in the mountains of Colorado and Alaska.

Everest ascent

When Hornbein and his partner Willi Unsoeld reached the foot of Mount Everest in 1963 as members of the American Mount Everest Expedition , only eight people had made their way to the summit and back down again; no American had been among these mountaineers. Hornbein and Unsoeld did not want to reach the summit via the traditional route from the south saddle, which Edmund Hillary had already taken, but via the west ridge, which is considered difficult and dangerous.

The expedition leader Norman Dyhrenfurth decided that James Whittaker and the Sherpa Nawang Gombu should first take the traditional route to ensure the first American summit victory on the highest mountain in the world. All expeditions that had been successful up to then had ascended and descended via this route, the high valley Western Qwm , the Südsattel and the Südgrat. In an understatement of danger, this was also called the “Yak Route”. James Whittaker and Nawang Gombu reached the summit on May 1, 1963 and hoisted the American flag.

Three weeks later, Hornbein and Unsoeld were also able to set out on the route they had chosen. However, they did not come up the entire west ridge as the conditions were difficult. High up on the mountain they turned left into the north face to Tibet and used a steep valley in the north face west of the summit pyramid for the final ascent, which has since been called " Hornbein-Couloir ".

After several high camps, they reached the summit on May 22nd at around 6.15 p.m. On the same day as Unsoeld and Hornbein, two more Americans from their expedition on the south route, Barry Bishop and Lute Jerstad , were on the summit two hours before Hornbein and Unsoeld. During the descent over the south ridge, the four of them united - Hornbein and Unsoeld took a different descent route and were the first to cross Everest.

Hornbein and Unsoeld saved the other comrades when they got into an emergency. Bad weather forced a night camp at an altitude of 8,500 meters. Hornbein described this experience in his book "The West Ridge" ( The West Ridge ): "The night was overwhelming empty. The black silhouette of the Lhotse crouched there, half to see, half to suspect, and still below us. There was essentially nothing there, just nothing. We hung in a timeless emptiness, penetrated by intense cold - and knowing that we could do nothing but shiver and wait for the sunrise. ”That night Unsoeld had taken off Hornbein's boots and warmed his feet with his body. They continued their descent at sunrise and met Dave Dingman with a Sherpa , who missed his own summit chance to help those in need by giving them an aid ration of oxygen .

The Hornbein Couloir, a channel in the uppermost part of the north face, which Unsoeld and Hornbein climbed for the first time on the side of the west ridge, is named after Tom Hornbein. The Everest crossing by Unsoeld and Hornbein went down in the legends of Everest.

In 2002 Hornbein was still active both as a professor and as a mountaineer at the age of 72.

Alpinistic services (extract)

  • Several first ascents in the mountains of North America, especially in Alaska and Colorado .
  • Masherbrum (7821 m, Karakoram), participation as an expedition doctor and mountaineer in the US expedition in 1960, Willi Unsoeld and George Irving Bell succeeded in the first ascent of the mountain .
  • Mount Everest (8848 m, Himalaya), ascent in 1963 via the west ridge and descent via the southeast ridge, first crossing of an eight-thousander; together with Willi Unsoeld .

literature

  • Thomas F. Hornbein: Everest: The West Ridge. Seattle, Washington, USA Mountaineers Books, 1980, ISBN 0-916890-90-2 ; 1998, ISBN 0-89886-616-2
  • Thomas F. Hornbein: Regulation of Breathing. 2 volumes (Lung Biology in Health and Disease Series, Volume 17), Marcel Dekker Inc, 1981, Volume 1, ISBN 0-8247-6607-5 ; Volume 2, ISBN 0-8247-1013-4
  • Walt Unsworth: Everest , 1981 Penguin Books ISBN 0-7139-1108-5
  • Robert B. Schoene and Thomas F. Hornbein: High Altitude. An Exploration of Human Adaption. 2001, ISBN 0-8247-0313-8
  • Thomas F. Hornbein, Maria Coffey: Where The Mountain Casts Its Shadow. The Dark Side Of Extreme Adventure. London, Hutchinson, 2003, ISBN 0-312-29065-9 and ISBN 0-09-179501-X
  • Peter Potterfield, Thomas F. Hornbein: Everest (Mountaineers Anthology) Mountaineers Books; 2003, ISBN 0-89886-903-X
  • Maria Coffey, Thomas F. Hornbein: Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow. The Dark Side of Extreme Adventure. St. Martin's Press 2003, ISBN 0-312-29065-9 , Griffin (Reprint 2005) ISBN 0-312-33901-1

swell

  1. ^ William Unsoeld: Masherbrum – 1960. In: American Alpine Journal 1961, pp. 208-229 and picture panels (AAJO). (PDF; 5.1 MB), accessed October 6, 2011.

Web links