Abstract
Thomas F. Hornbein, MD, 1995 (approx.), Mount Si, Cascades, WA.
On Belay: Tribute from Brownie Schoene
It is a rare twilight in life when one can reflect on a friend who has been an integral part of every aspect of one’s life. For me, that person was Tom Hornbein.
In medical school I threw my physical and emotional passion into the mountains—climbing in the Gunks, New England frozen waterfalls, and eventually the mountains of the West. I needed to continue my career somewhere west of Chicago, and Seattle offered excellent medical training surrounded by glaciers, rocks, and adventure. I had purchased a first edition copy of Everest, the West Ridge, and I heard that its author, Tom Hornbein, was on the faculty at the University of Washington School of Medicine. I thought maybe I could get a glimpse of this revered Everest mountaineer and maybe shake his hand.
He was already somewhat of a legend as a mountaineer, but in his serious academic career in anesthesiology he was somewhat disdainful of his being known as the doctor who climbed Everest, a moniker that he eventually made peace with. Tom grew up in the flatlands of St. Louis climbing the trees and rooftops of his family home, but his parents made the mistake of sending him to summer camp in Estes Park when he was a teenager. Over the next few years, he went to college in Boulder, became a prodigious climber of the crags there and elsewhere, and in 1960 was invited on an American expedition to Masherbrum in the Himalaya. While he was in the Navy as a physician in San Diego, he was invited on the 1963 American Everest expedition which was the first American ascent of the peak. Tom and Willie Unsoeld then forged an historic climb of the West Ridge and traverse of the peak which is a pillar of mountaineering lore. He was never able to shake that feat, nor in his heart did I think he want to.
So, I showed up in Seattle, seduced by where I was living, and I actually did meet Tom briefly when I was an intern. A few years later when I was one of the chief residents in medicine, I was to organize grand rounds each week. In part because of Tom’s having climbed Everest, the topic of altitude was of interest to all concerned. So I invited Chris Chandler, an alumnus of UW School of Medicine and climbing partner of mine who had been a summit climber on a 1976 American Expedition to Everest to give grand rounds, and with great trepidation I asked Tom if he would give a short bit at the end on whether Everest could be climbed without supplemental oxygen which had not been done at that time. He acquiesced. That morning the auditorium was packed, but Chris had missed the ferry from Vashon Island, and I was left with no speaker. So, Tom looked up, smiled, and said, “Let’s wing it.” So, with about four slides, he gave a fabulous grand rounds and saved me, and thus the first time of many times that he put me “on belay.”
For some reason he took an interest in my academic life. My interest in what makes us breathe at extreme altitude overlapped with his early work in physiology as he mentored me in grant and research paper writing in a most thorough and compulsive way. In one early paper as I was a rookie, he spent 3 hours editing a manuscript on control of ventilation in climbers to extreme altitude, word-by-word, to teach me clarity. I couldn’t figure out why he, who was chief of one of the strongest departments of anesthesiology in the country, was spending time with me. Years later, we coedited and cowrote an 850-page book on high altitude, going over each chapter, and reading each final draft to each other out loud over his dining room table at Lake Sammamish. We also cotaught the second-year medical students’ pulmonary physiology course for 25 years. During the first couple of years, I sat meekly in the corner learning how to teach our subject matter. There were years of attending meetings together, especially the iconic Hypoxia Symposium at Lake Louise.
But there was much more. We climbed together whenever we could—classic climbs in the Cascades that with Fred Dunham and Bill Sumner always turned into “epic climbs,” weekly forays to the Seattle Vertical World, the first indoor climbing gym in the United States, and 2 true adventures to the northern Yunan Province to climb the highest peak in eastern Tibet. I felt that he and Nick Clinch and Pete Schoening invited the younger me and Robin Houston to carry loads only to discover that Peter Schoening, 20 our senior, had the strength to carry everything himself. These trips were in the spirit of real adventure to an unclimbed peak in the remote mountains of eastern Tibet—still unclimbed.
But there is still more. As I floundered through life, love, and work, Tom was there to support and not judge. I am sure that he questioned some of my decisions in life, but I always felt he had me on belay. I also felt that too about his wife Kathy who after some doubt also was there for me. She was a quiet, supportive pillar to Tom and also later to me. In that regard, I felt that he and I were lucky in life and love as well.
When one loses a friend such as Tom, it is only afterwards that one realizes that you are constantly talking with that person one way or the other; and when they are gone that communication is literally gone, but I keep talking with him now for advice, for kidding him, for sharing all the elements of a life. He has been there for all of us.
In the end, Tom was all of those things in his legend, but to me he was just Tom, always there, always supportive, always belaying.
Robert B. (Brownie) Schoene, MD
Climbing: Tribute from Ken Zafren
Tom Hornbein was a leader in mountaineering, mountain rescue, and mountain medicine. In 1963, he and Willi Unsoeld completed the first traverse of Mount Everest, becoming the first climbers to traverse an 8000 m peak. Tom was an active member of the Wilderness Medical Society.
I had the good fortune to meet Tom in 1979, during my first year in medical school at the University of Washington. At that time, I was vaguely aware that I had been following in Tom’s footsteps. Tom was a founder of the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group (RMRG) in Boulder, CO and had majored in geology as an undergraduate at the University of Colorado, before pursuing a career in medicine. It was my experiences as a member of RMRG that led me to medicine, while I was a graduate student in geography at the University of Colorado. Although he was best known by climbers for his traverse of Mount Everest, Tom was a pioneer in the modern practice of anesthesiology and the chair of the department of anesthesiology at the University of Washington. He graciously answered my letters as I interviewed and was accepted to medical school.
When I arrived in Seattle in the fall of 1979, I met Tom for the first time. A few days later, I was assigned a medical school advisor whose one-size-fits-all style of advising was not a good fit for me. Unaware of how busy the chair of a medical school department can be, I naively asked Tom if he would be my medical school advisor. Tom generously agreed. Whenever I asked to see him, an appointment would be available within a few days. Tom gave me a lot of great advice. Although I didn’t follow all his recommendations, I always considered them carefully. Who knows how much more successful my medical career would have been if I had followed more of his advice? Years later, we were still able to laugh together at this thought.
Tom’s research interests included control of breathing and brain function at high altitude. I had hoped to work in his lab, but the manager of the lab left to go to medical school, closing the lab, when I was about to start my research. Even so, Tom remained my mentor for many years.
Tom was a popular speaker at WMS meetings. His favorite topic was the importance of uncertainty. While most of the other members of the 1963 American Everest Expedition were content to summit by the standard route, Tom had his eye on the unclimbed west ridge. The chance of success was much lower. Nobody knew what difficulties would be found on the west ridge. When he and Willy Unsoeld climbed the route now known as the Hornbein Couloir, they could have been climbing to certain death without the possibility of retreat. They were extremely lucky that their night spent in the open near the top of Everest was not windy.
Tom was fascinated by the idea of uncertainty. His talks at WMS meetings, illustrated with panels from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, were thought-provoking explorations of enterprises in which the outcomes were in doubt, as the outcome of the west ridge ascent had been. He also emphasized the importance of friendships formed on expeditions. He remained close to all the surviving members of the 1963 Everest expedition throughout the rest of his life.
Tom told a story of the Everest expedition concerning the 2 “Himalayan veterans” on the expedition. These climbers actually had experienced extreme altitudes on Masherbrum in the Karakoram Range in Pakistan rather than in the Himalaya. They were aware of the importance and difficulty of obtaining sufficient calories to make up for poor digestion at altitude. At base camp, these 2 climbers forced themselves to eat the food that the other members of the expedition couldn’t finish.
As a result, at bedtime, they were unable to bend over far enough to untie their own boots. After a few nights sleeping with their boots on, Tom said to Willi, “I’ll untie your boots if you’ll untie mine.”
The mountain medicine community has lost a great leader, but Tom will always be remembered for his contributions to mountain medicine and his encouragement to generations of young clinicians and researchers.
Ken Zafren, MD