Louis Reichardt

= Mountaineering =

September 6, 1978 - Jim Wickwire and Louis Reichardt reached the top of the world's second largest mountain, Pakistan's K-2. They were the first Americans to reach the summit. [ [http://www.on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/sep06.htm http://www.on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/sep06.htm] ]

1976: Summit team with John Roskelley and Jim States on Nanda Devi. Despite extreme adversity, the three were successful in reaching the summit. Tragically Nanda Devi Unsoeld died at high camp due to complications of a stomach virus and acute mountain sickness.

1983: Lou Reichardt, Kim Momb, and Carlos Buhler become the first to summit the East Face. Mount Everest [ [http://www.answers.com/topic/mount-everest http://www.answers.com/topic/mount-everest] ]

As climbing leader of the 1981 American expedition to Everest, led by Richard Blum, Lou Reichardt faced what must have seemed an almost insurmountable task, to chart a path up the unclimbed East face of Everest, the so called Kangshung Face. And for that year at least the Khanshung Face remained insurmountable. The expedition, though well financed, was torn by strife, bad weather, threat of avalanche, and illness and the attempt at the summit abandoned.

Two years later Lou would return with another American expedition this time led by James Morrissey. This expedition contained many of the same team members as the unsuccessful 1981 group and would also attempt to summit via the Eastern face. Though the summit was a success, putting several Americans atop Everest it was darkened by the falling deaths of two Japanese climbers and a sherpa from another nearby expedition.

Reichardt went on to be among the first Americans to summit K2 (and the first to summit both Everest and K2). He is a past president of the American Alpine Club. [ [http://www.everestnews.com/history/climbers/loureichardt1200308.htm http://www.everestnews.com/history/climbers/loureichardt1200308.htm] ]

Scientific Career

He was an investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and is a UC San Francisco professor of physiology and the director of the graduate program in neuroscience. He is a fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Arthur Lander, the UC Irvine developmental biologist, is one of his eminent students. [American Society for Cell Biology Newsletter," 2001. [http://www.ascb.org/index.cfm?navid=110&id=1370&tcode=nws3 Member profile] ]

References