Unsoeld (left) and Tom Hornbein on Everest in 1963.
Tom Hornbein has just died at the age of 92, in the height of the siege of Everest, barely two weeks away from celebrating the 60th anniversary of one of the most daring ascents of the planet’s roof in mountaineering history. Our society has changed so much in those six decades that Everest now harbors the unimaginable, the conventional, the businesslike, the hunt for the selfie, lines of the absurd, and also a certain sadness. With Hornbein goes such a curious, brave, rebellious person, never a sheep, someone who has nothing to do with those who now cling to a rope like children tied to their mother’s hand. They hate to imagine what it means to seek an uncharted path to the very top: safety first, they proclaim, but Hornbein might reply that safety in the mountains requires autonomy, experience, and the mastery necessary to envision challenges. that stand out from the ordinary. However, Hornbein was always graceful and never criticized the unfolding of events on the planet’s roof. He passed by, doing as he pleased and drawing his bow: He climbed and hiked all his life, but never again took part in a major expedition. In fact, he described his time on Everest as “another adventure to add to the many adventures I’ve had on various mountains over the years.” Climbing a tree or the roof of a house were his first great adventures, which time does not erase because they remain engraved in his DNA.
But what did Tom Hornbein do to be missed? He was a great doctor, teacher and researcher (especially in high altitude physiology) and lived by and for medicine. Continue. After that he always liked to climb. He wasn’t looking for fame or brands or anything other than enjoying himself. To dry. And for the latter he had to face himself, his fears and his enormous curiosity. That’s why he didn’t like familiar trails, that’s why he gave up trying to be the first American to reach the top of Everest. If others had already done it, what difference did it make to be first or fourth? The interesting thing was there before his nose and gaze were always drawn to the obvious and majestic west ridge of the mountain, virginal, silhouetted against the sky, an image that beguiled him enough to say: if it’s there, how not to go just take a look? On May 22, 1963, Hornbein and Willy Unsoeld left their tent at 28,000 feet (8,300 meters) and sucked up bottled oxygen (it was believed at the time that man would not survive at the top without such help), but in perfect alpine style, as if they had escaped from school to see what the hill hides behind their houses. Hornbein was guided by a blurry photo showing a snow gully to avoid the last boulders. The image had seduced him as much as the mountains he discovered as a child in Estes Park, Colorado: more than an image, it was an inner earthquake, a sense that life didn’t have to be routine. What he saw was a need: adventure. If Hornbein pursued his medical career in Seattle, after his retirement he returned to Estes Park, where he died on May 6. He went on, walked his filthy paths, and just a decade ago, at the age of 80, he ran away from home, climbed a modest wall and spent the night stuffed in his sack. Just to stargaze for a while and maybe remember how his friend Unsoeld lost his toes while tending to his own. Yes, both climbers reached the summit of Everest where no one had ever done it before (and virtually no one has done it again) and signed on to make the first eight-thousander journey, knowing full well that the price had an implicit toll: sleeping outdoors, without artificial oxygen, at 8,530 meters. Throughout the night, Unsoeld held his friend’s feet, massaging them, pressing them against his stomach and bringing his fingers back to life. Can someone forget this gesture? Every year, until Willy Unsoeld disappeared from an avalanche on Mount Rainier, the two spoke on the phone on the anniversary of their Everest summit. When Unsoeld was gone from 1979, Hornbein continued the custom by calling his widow every May 22 and March 4, the anniversary of his friend’s death.
From his experience on Everest, Tom Hornbein has written a book (Everest: The West Ridge) which is not about telling an achievement but rather analyzing an inner journey. It was his way of thanking literature for what had given him so much: knowledge and the desire to go out into the mountains. Without books, he said, there would be a huge gap in the education of those who pursue dreams. In his opinion, the creativity of writers, photographers or filmmakers has always been crucial in perpetuating the message in the mountaineering community. He also became a hero to numerous generations of climbers. “I never wanted to be known as a doctor who climbed Everest, and Willi was also annoyed by the label and humorously described his feeling as having an albatross fluttering around his neck. There’s no way to get rid of it,” Hornbein explained in the Denver Post.
Today, 500 clients and at least as many Sherpas are eagerly awaiting a nice weather window on the southern slope of Everest to charge to the top. Never before have so many candidates gathered. Most of you will never have heard of Tom Hornbein or know that 60 years ago he was happy on Everest because he just wanted to have fun.
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