Peter Kittilsby Schoening (July 30, 1927 – September 22, 2004) was an American mountaineer. Schoening and Andrew Kauffman was two Americans to first successfully climb the Pakistani peak

Gasherbrum I Gasherbrum I ( ur, ; ), surveyed as K5 and also known as Hidden Peak, is the 11th highest mountain in the world at above sea level. It is located in Shigar District in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan. Gasherbrum I is part of the G ...

in 1958, and was one of the first to summit

Mount Vinson Vinson Massif () is a large mountain massif in Antarctica that is long and wide and lies within the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains. It overlooks the Ronne Ice Shelf near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula. The massif is located a ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

in 1966. Schoening is perhaps best remembered for his heroics during "The Belay" while part of the American K2 expedition in 1953, where he single-handedly averted the loss of the entire expedition.

Biography

Early years

Schoening was born July 30, 1927, in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington to John and Gudrun Schoening, and grew up in Seattle. He dropped out of school to serve in the US Navy in the last year of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Later, he earned a degree in chemical engineering from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

, where he became involved in mountain climbing.

The Belay

In August 1953, the same year that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed Everest, an American team of seven set out to climb K2 led by Charles Houston. On the seventh day, climbing without oxygen in a storm, they became trapped at over 25,000 feet (7,620 meters) on the Abruzzi Ridge. One of the expedition members, Art Gilkey, collapsed with

deep venous thrombosis Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a type of venous thrombosis involving the formation of a blood clot in a deep vein, most commonly in the legs or pelvis. A minority of DVTs occur in the arms. Symptoms can include pain, swelling, redness, and enla ...

, followed by

pulmonary embolism Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a blockage of an artery in the lungs by a substance that has moved from elsewhere in the body through the bloodstream ( embolism). Symptoms of a PE may include shortness of breath, chest pain particularly upon breathin ...

. Realizing Gilkey would surely die if not taken off the mountain immediately, they began to lower Gilkey, wrapped in a sleeping bag, over treacherous rock and ice in the middle of the storm. While attempting to traverse an ice sheet, climber

George Irving Bell George Irving Bell (August 4, 1926 – May 28, 2000) was an American physicist, biologist and mountaineer, and a grandson of John Joseph Seerley.Tony Streather loose. Streather fell into the rope joining Charles Houston and Bob Bates. Bates and Houston fell into the rope connecting Dee Molenaar to Gilkey. Schoening, despite already holding Gilkey on

belay Belaying is a variety of techniques climbers use to create friction within a climbing system, particularly on a climbing rope, so that a falling climber does not fall very far. A climbing partner typically applies tension at the other end of t ...

during the attempted traverse to Camp VII, was able, through strength, quickness, and skill, to arrest the fall of all six men, with his ice axe wedged against a boulder frozen in the mountainside. Schoening considered himself merely lucky, but his companions felt otherwise. During the team's scramble to recover from the fall and establish a forced bivouac, they discovered that Gilkey, who had been in voice contact with them, suspended still in the protective sleeping bag from a line secured on either side of the ice axe, had vanished in a slide along with the supporting anchors. Houston, among others, has speculated that, following Bell's fall, Gilkey cut himself loose to save the lives of his five colleagues, who were variously injured and at risk for their own safety. The story of the expedition is told in the book ''K2 — The Savage Mountain'' by Charles Houston, M.D. and Robert Bates. Today, The Belay is considered to be one of the most famous events in mountaineering history. Schoening's ice axe is currently on display at the

Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum Henry Bradford Washburn Jr. (June 7, 1910 – January 10, 2007) was an American explorer, mountaineering, mountaineer, photography, photographer, and cartography, cartographer. He established the Boston Museum of Science, served as its director f ...

in Golden, Colorado. Schoening's actions clearly saved the lives of five of his climbing partners. He was awarded the David A. Sowles Memorial Award for his heroics by the American Alpine Club in 1981 as a "mountaineer who has distinguished himself, with unselfish devotion at personal risk or sacrifice of a major objective, in going to the assistance of fellow climbers imperiled in the mountains."

Later years

In 1996 at age 68, he went to Everest together with his nephew, Klev Schoening. He stopped his ascent well short of the summit, at Camp Three, after being diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat. The disastrous events of that week are recounted in several books, including ''

Into Thin Air ''Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster'' is a 1997 bestselling nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details Krakauer's experience in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and sev ...

'' by

Jon Krakauer Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954) is an American writer and mountaineer. He is the author of bestselling non-fiction books—'' Into the Wild''; ''Into Thin Air''; ''Under the Banner of Heaven''; and '' Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat ...

and '' The Climb'' by

Anatoli Boukreev Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev (russian: Анато́лий Никола́евич Букре́ев; January 16, 1958 – December 25, 1997) was a Soviet and Kazakhstani mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those a ...

. In 2004, he died of bone cancer at his home in Kenmore, Washington at the age of 77.

Legacy

Fifty-three years later, in 2006, the descendants of the men on the belay got together, calling themselves “The Children of ‘The Belay'”. Attending were 28 children and grandchildren who would have never been born if it were not for Pete Schoening and his ice axe high on K2. Schoening Peak in the

Vinson Massif Vinson Massif () is a large mountain massif in Antarctica that is long and wide and lies within the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains. It overlooks the Ronne Ice Shelf near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula. The massif is located ...

is named after Pete Schoening. Putrid Pete's Peak (P3), a prominence along the north rim of

Snoqualmie Pass Snoqualmie Pass is a mountain pass that carries Interstate 90 (I-90) through the Cascade Range in the U.S. state of Washington. The pass summit is at an elevation of , on the county line between Kittitas County and King County. Snoqualmie ...

in Washington was also named after him.

Biography

Early years

The Belay

Later years

Legacy

References

Further reading