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Peter H. Hackett is an American mountaineer and medical doctor. He is the third person to have summited
Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...
in a solo ascent, climbing from
South Col The South Col is a col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the highest and fourth-highest mountains in the world, respectively. The South Col is typically swept by high winds, leaving it free of significant snow accumulation. Since 1950 (when Tibe ...
to the top on October 24, 1981. He studies the effect of altitude on human physiology, and is the founder of a medical rescue camp on Everest and a rescue clinic and lab on
Mount Denali Denali (), federally designated as Mount McKinley, is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. It is the tallest mountain in the world from base to peak on land, measuring . On p. 20 of Helma ...
, and the director of the Institute for Altitude Medicine in Colorado.


Biography

In 2000, Peter Hackett was an emergency physician in
Grand Junction, Colorado Grand Junction is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and largest city of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. Grand Junction's population was 65,560 at the 2020 United St ...
, and a Professor of Medicine at the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
in Seattle. By 2009, he was the director of the Institute for Altitude Medicine in
Telluride, Colorado Telluride is the county seat and most populous town of San Miguel County, Colorado, San Miguel County in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Colorado. The town is a former silver mining camp on the San Miguel River (Colorado), San M ...
, and a professor at the School of Medicine at the
University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver, and the U ...
.


Medical research

In 1973, Hackett was a co-founder of the Himalayan Rescue Association. It established a clinic near
Everest Base Camp There are two Base camp#Shelter, base camps on Mount Everest, on opposite sides of the mountains: #South Base Camp in Nepal, South Base Camp is in Nepal at an altitude of (), while #North Base Camp in Tibet, North Base Camp is in Tibet at (). ...
(which is at ), where the sick were cared for and information was gathered about mountain sickness. In 1981, as a member of the American Research Expedition, he helped set up a "well-equipped" lab at ) and a smaller lab at . In 1982, he and Bill Mills started a rescue clinic and lab on
Mount Denali Denali (), federally designated as Mount McKinley, is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. It is the tallest mountain in the world from base to peak on land, measuring . On p. 20 of Helma ...
in Alaska, at (funded by the US Army and the
National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...
), where again they treated patients with altitude sickness and gathered information. Hackett has also published on drug use among Everest climbers; his 2016 study, co-authored with Andrew Luks, Colin Grissom, and Luanne Freer and published in '' High Altitude Medicine & Biology'', suggested that the use of
performance-enhancing substance Performance-enhancing substances (PESs), also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. Many substances, such as anabolic steroids, can be used to improve ath ...
s, "while present on the mountain, isn't a serious problem".


Everest expedition

Hackett was a member of the 1981 American Medical Research Expedition led by
John B. West John B. West FRCP (born 1928) is a respiratory physiologist who made major research contributions in the area of ventilation-perfusion relationships in the lung. He led a medical research expedition to Mount Everest in 1981, which investigated ...
. He was slated to try for the summit as the second of two groups on October 24, 1981; around noon, Chris Pizzo and Young Tenzing had reached the summit, with Pizzo doing various measurements and taking samples of his own breath for later research. Three hours later Hackett was observed approaching the summit, which he reached at 4 pm. On the descent he fell through a layer of snow at the
Hillary Step The Hillary Step was a 40-foot vertical rock face that sat above sea level on the southeast ridge of Mount Everest. Located halfway between the "South Summit (Mount Everest), South Summit" and the true summit, the Hillary Step was the most te ...
, and after a drop of he found himself hanging upside down with his right boot, snagged on some rock, holding him up. With his ice axe he righted himself and then found an old rope, still fixed, which he used to pull himself up. He fell a second time, but got up again and descended a thousand feet, where he found Pizzo waiting for him. Together, in the dark, they safely got to Camp 5, on the South Col. Hackett described some of the effects of hypoxia. At , while sleeping in his tent without supplementary oxygen, he had a lively hallucination that John West, the expedition leader, was in his tent, and had brought an oxygen bottle with which he filled up the tent. On the way to the summit, he stood on a ledge and "was sure that if I had jumped off from that point, I could have flown. I had this feeling that somehow spirits would come and, and just support me and fly me around the mountains and I could see all these wonderful places down below and visit friends and just get great views of all the mountains." He also said that hypoxia was probably to blame for the fall on the Hillary Step, and the decision-making process that led to his fall. Hackett was the third person to summit Everest solo, after Franz Oppurg (1978, from the South side) and
Reinhold Messner Reinhold Andreas Messner (; born 17 September 1944) is an Italian climber, explorer, and author from the German-speaking province of South Tyrol. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent o ...
(1980, from the North side).West 143.


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Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hackett, Peter Living people 20th-century American physicians American mountain climbers High-altitude medicine physicians Year of birth missing (living people)