Jim Morrison Completes the "Most Audacious Ski Run in History" on the Slopes of Mt. Everest
Skier and mountaineer Jim Morrison has completed the first-ever ski descent of Mt. Everest’s notoriously challenging Hornbein Couloir in a feat National Geographic called “the most audacious ski run in history.”
Morrison’s line down the towering 29,032-foot mountain linked the Hornbein with the Japanese Couloir, National Geographic reported. Morrison had been at Mt. Everest for six and a half weeks before pushing for the summit. This was his third attempt to notch the run.
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Mt. Everest, despite its imposing stature, is summited by hundreds of people each year. But the Hornbein, a narrow slot of snow that slices down the mountain’s north face, has only been climbed a few times. It was first ascended in 1963 by Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld.
Since then, it’s loomed large as an aspirational, fantastical-seeming descent for ski mountaineers. In 2002, French snowboarder Marco Siffredi disappeared and was never found after trying to ride the line.
A team of 11 climbers and fixers joined Morrison on the recent climb, including filmmaker Jimmy Chin, who is known for directing the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo about Alex Honnold’s daring, rope-free ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite. Alongside Free Solo co-director Chai Vasarhelyi, Chin is creating a new National Geographic movie documenting Morrison’s journey.
“We will share an extraordinary story about the power of the human spirit and hopefully expand audiences’ perception of the human experience,” said Chin, in a press release, of the upcoming film.
Morrison used the ski descent to honor his late partner and fellow ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson, who died on the flanks of Nepal’s Manaslu in an avalanche in 2022. Before her death, she and Morrison had planned to take on the Hornbein Couloir together. After taking photos at Everest’s summit, Morrison spread Nelson’s ashes.
“I had a little conversation with her and felt like I could dedicate the whole day to her,” he told National Geographic.
The ensuing descent took Morrison four hours and five minutes as he hop-turned and skied back to the Rongbuk Glacier, facing icy, 50-degree slopes along the way.
Morrison, 50, is already known as a leading ski mountaineer who has completed previous and impressive descents at the limits of possibility. In 2018, with Nelson, he became the first to ski from the 27,940-foot summit of Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest mountain.
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