Acclaimed mountaineer Pete Schoening dies at 77

Pete Schoening, an American climber whose skill and quick actions on K2, the world’s second-highest peak, saved five team members from plunging to their deaths down an icy slope in 1953 – a legendary moment in mountaineering – has died. He was 77.

Schoening, who suffered from multiple myeloma, died Wednesday at his home in Kenmore, Wash., said his son, Eric.

Schoening, a Seattle native who began climbing in the mid-1940s, made several first ascents of peaks in the Cascades, east of Seattle, in 1948; and in the Yukon (Mount Augusta and King Peak’s East Ridge) in 1952.

In 1958, Schoening and climber Andy Kauffman completed the first ascent of Hidden Peak (also called Gasherbrum I) in Pakistan, one of the 14 mountains in the world higher than 8,000 meters (26,246 feet).

“He and Kauffman were the only Americans to first climb an 8,000-meter peak, an accomplishment that solidified Schoening’s place as one of the top American climbers of his generation,” Lloyd Athearn, deputy director of the American Alpine Club in Golden, Colo., told the Los Angeles Times.

In 1966, Schoening, by then the owner of a fiberglass manufacturing company, joined nine other climbers in making the first successful ascent of 16,067-foot Mount Vinson, the tallest peak in Antarctica.

But for all his mountain-climbing accomplishments, Schoening received the most notoriety for one thing: his role in stopping the perilous fall of his fellow climbers as they attempted to lower a stricken team member down a steep, icy slope on storm-battered K2 in 1953.

“That,” said Athearn, “is one of the most dramatic moments in American mountaineering history.”

The characteristically humble Schoening always played down his life-saving actions on K2, telling the Tacoma News Tribune last year that, “I’m surprised that it attracts interest, frankly.”

In addition to his son, Schoening is survived by his wife of 51 years, Mell; five other children, Kim, Kristiann, Mark, Lisa Schoening Jertz, and Kurt; 12 grandchildren; and two brothers, Bill and Paul.