There are only two men who have the distinction of having a feature on Everest named after them - Ed Hillary has the Hillary Step and Tom Hornbein has the Hornbein Couloir. In 1963 Tom and Willi Unsoeld made the first ascent of Everest by its unexplored West Ridge – with part of the route going off up the North Face and the eponymous couloir – before descending via the South East Ridge and the South Col to make the first traverse of the world's highest mountain. Tom Hornbein was born in 1930, in St. Louis, Missouri. A teenage interest in geology turned into an interest in mountains and in turn through the mountains he developed an interest in medicine. He studied geology at the University of Colorado until his curiosity about how the human body reacts to high altitude led him to study medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. He went on to enjoy a distinguished career as an anesthesiologist and academic serving as chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle from 1978 to 1993. His life has been a meld of mountains and medicine.
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