Pete Schoening

Who was Pete Schoening?

Peter Kittlesby Schoening was an American mountaineer. Schoening was one of two Americans to first successfully climb the Pakistani peak Gasherbrum I in 1958, and was one of the first to summit Mount Vinson in Antarctica in 1966. He was born July 30, 1927, in Seattle, Washington to John and Gudrun Schoening, and grew up in Olympia. He dropped out of school to serve in the US Navy in the last year of the Second World War. Later, he earned a degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington, where he became involved in mountain climbing. He died of cancer at his home in Kenmore, Washington.

Schoening is perhaps best remembered for his heroics during "The Belay" while part of the American K2 expedition in 1953. He single-handedly averted the loss of the entire expedition when he used an ice axe to set and hold a line saving five of the team who had slid off the mountain and dangled thousands of feet in the air.

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.