Everest: The West Ridge, Anniversary Edition

In late May, 1963, two men, having spent the night at 27,000 feet on a ledge carved out of ice on a sheer cliff face, begin the final ascent to the highest place on Earth, Mt. Everest, 29,029 feet above sea level. They are climbing without fixed ropes, freestyle, with no support team and no chance of rescue. They are wearing reindeer-skin boots, woolen pants, shirts and mitts and windbreaker jackets. Except for rudimentary oxygen tanks and masks, they are without any of the high tech gear that is standard to even the lowliest mountaineer today. It is an achievement in mountaineering that is in many ways unrivaled for its sheer audacity and, unless you are a climbing aficionado, largely unknown. This is the story told in “Everest: The West Ridge” by Tom Hornbein, one of the two men that made the historic summit of Everest by the previously untried West Ridge. Told in an almost matter of fact and humble manner, it is the stuff every boy and most men dream of privately. Of facing death, going on anyway, and winning. It is the stuff of legends and dreams.Climbing Everest by a route no man had ever tried before. Knowing that they could not reach the summit with time to get down. Knowing that the route they chose did not allow them to turn back or retreat. Hornbein never admits it in this book, but he had to know that death was more probable than survival. And still they made the decision to go forward, a conscious decision in my mind that left only success or death as the two possible outcomes. Hornbein dances near to this issue throughout the book, but for some reason never tackles it head on. Maybe it was a decision he did not want to admit to for some reason. But when faced with the opportunity to do what no man had ever done before, even if it meant his death, he pushed on and grasped for the gold ring, and then spent the better part of the rest of his life trying to pretend it was no big deal.Only dumb luck and iron will saved them. But they succeeded, the gods smiled at their audacity and will to succeed. There are two kinds of bravery and heroism I think. The first kind occurs when you have a split second to react, to save a life or lives with little time to think or ponder. The second kind occurs when you have lots of time to think. When the only life at risk is yours. When the easiest course is to turn back and no one would think the worse of you. But you move ahead anyway, knowing the two outcomes are success or death. That is a special kind of heroism and the subject of this book. Serendipity and luck also course through this story. How it never could have happened without the alignment of the heavens and almost mystical providence. The other key element I took from this book is how, when served up similar circumstances, men react and behave so differently. How some men, experienced mountaineers and strong climbers, never acclimated to altitude and suffered cruel defeat while supposedly lesser men soared to glory and thrived in the inhospitable environment presented to them. How is it that the man recruited to be the radio operator, needed to provide a willing back for manual labor because of the illness of others, ends up on the North ridge of Everett at 27,000 feet blazing a trail to the final camp?I highly recommend this book, as well as the excellent historical recounting of the expedition The Vast Unknown, by Broughton Coburn.

Tom Hornbein's account of the first ascent of Mount Everest via the terrifyingly difficult West Ridge remains a classic of mountaineering literature; this reviewer is glad to see it still in print nearly 50 years after the event. Hornbien and his climbing partner, the legendary Willi Unsoeld, were members of the 1963 American Expedition to Everest, which put five Americans and a sherpa on top at a time when only half a dozen people were known to have reached the summit. "Everest: The West Ridge" is an account of the expedition, but it's really about the desire of Hornbein and Unsoeld to tackle an unclimbed and virtually unknown route.Hornbein and Unsoeld took an early interest in the possibilities of the previously untried West Ridge. With only a few grainy aerial photographs to go by, the two managed to work a short reconnaissance into the campaign to get Jim Whittacker and Nawang Gombu to the summit via the South Col route. Enough resources remained after that succcess for two more teams to make a summit attempt, including one via the West Ridge. There were difficulties with weather, supplies, and route-finding. In the end, Unsoeld and Hornbein found themselves, finally, high up on the West Ridge at three thirty in the afternoon, facing either a near suicidal retreat back down the steep and crumbling rocks of the West face, or a summit attempt that was very likely to end in darkness high on the mountain...Tom Hornbein was a skilled climber who happened to be a doctor and medical researcher. His somewhat clinical prose style won't necessarily appeal to the general reader. His narrative will be of interest to those who can appreciate the difficulties and risks involved in the West Ridge climb, including the death or glory decision to procceed on to the summit in late afternoon on that May day in 1963, risking an exposed bivouac in the death zone, or worse. To that audience, this book is very highly recommended.

In 1963, an American expedition put six men on top of Mount Everest, at a point in time when only a handful of climbers had accomplished that feat. From a mountaineering point of view, the most remarkable legacy of the expedition was the first ascent of Everest via the West Ridge by the team of Willi Unsoeld and Tom Hornbein, a route so dangerous that few climbers have successfully followed in their wake, fifty years on.Tom Hornbein wrote a highly readable if low-key memoir of the climb, "Everest: The West Ridge", still in print. In it, Hornbein describes his and Unsoeld's early interest in an alternative to the South Col approach. The two climbers finally got their opportunity after Jim Whittacker and sherpa Nawang Gombu summitted, releasing resources for other climbers. With the assistance of sherpas and fellow climbers, Unsoeld and Hornbien managed to get enough supplies high enough for their summit try. Following a dangerous climb up the avalanche chute later known as the Horbein Couloir, the partners found themselves, finally, on top of the West Ridge in late afternoon. Judging a retreat back down their route to be near suicidal, they elected a death or glory try up and over the summit, with the frightening possibility of a high altitude bivouac if they were halted by darkness.This nicely packaged 50th anniversary edition, in beautiful coffee table-sized format, contains Horbein's original narrative, a new preface along with those used in earlier editions, a stunning collection of expedition photographs, and an afterword on the lives and fates of Horbein's fellow expedition members. A now retired Tom Hornbein grins happily from one of the endsheets, with a long career in medicine behind him and a few final thoughts to offer the reader on what it has meant to have climbed Everest. Very highly recommended.

I'm a huge fan of alpine and himalayan literature. My top three (measured bay the interest of the action and the literary qualities of the books) are Annapurna (M. Herzog), The shining mountain (P. Boarman) and Into thin air (J. Krakauer). On a second level are a lot of classics by Shipton, Hunt. Messner, Diemberger, Terray, Bonington and a long etcetera.Everest The west ridge will be in that second gropup. It has more interest in the action, the risks taken by Hornbein and Unsoeld on their attempt of a new route, than how it's told. Hornbein spends too much time in telling radio conversations between climbers and camps and passes too quickly on the climatic moment, the climbing up the (name given by his fellow climbers) Hornbein couloir, the dramatic descent and the return to home. Anyway it's still interesting and is enlightened by the pictures

Tom Hornbein was an intense young man, and as terrific a writer as a climber. I was fascinated by Hornbein’s account of the team dynamics, the preparations for the climb, and the rigours of climbing a previously unclimbed ridge of Everest. His creative and contemplative descriptions continually drew me in to the story he told. And the quality of this 50th anniversary edition of the book is superb with its multiple prefaces from previous editions, and its many large and beautiful photographs helping the reader to imagine what Hornbein so capably described. Many times I found myself pausing to re-read a sentence that just seemed far too thoughtful to be passed over too quickly.That happened as I read Hornbein’s stirring description of his and Willi Unsoeld’s brief time at the top of the world: “We felt the lonely beauty of the evening, the immense roaring silence of the wind, the tenuousness of our tie to all below. There was a hint of fear, but not for our lives, but of a vast unknown which pressed in upon us. A fleeting feeling of disappointment — that after all those dreams and questions this was only a mountain top — gave way to the suspicion that maybe there was something more, something beyond the three-dimensional form of the moment. If only it could be perceived… The question of why we had come was not now to be answered, yet something up here must yield an answer, something only dimly felt, comprehended by senses reaching farther yet than the point on which we stood; reaching for understanding, which hovered but a few steps higher.”

This book is a 50th anniversary edition and as such it includes introductions from all the previous editions and features a forward written by Jon Krakauer. The photos are outstanding. If you're like me and fascinated by the climbing history of Everest, then you should pick this up. This 1963 expedition was the first to attempt the West Ridge route and they were successful. The Hornbein Couloir got it's name from the man whose idea it was to use the gully as an easier way to circumvent the harder direct climb up the West Ridge (and of course he wrote this book) It's a good mountaineering story.

this is not about Everest at all. not even much of a mention of it other than i think they say they're there at some point ..but i don't know why !! . it's just about the very boring planning strategies of self absorbed dull personalities with big egos who don't notice their surroundings, and treat their porters badly ( was obvious the sherpas or "high altitude porters" didn't like them ...for good reason !) neither did i !cover is beautiful though - but really terrible read and bad writing and very boring with boring personalities.

Great story, well written. Enjoyed the reading about the long, logistic effort to launch the final assault on the mountain and the endless discussions to decide on options open.