The Hornbein Couloir is a steep gorge high on the northern side of Mount Everest in Tibet, that lies west of the summit pyramid and extends to about 150 metres below the summit itself.
Its companion to the east of the summit is the Norton Couloir.
The steep gorge was christened after a member of the 1963 American Everest Expedition, Thomas Hornbein.
Hornbein and his partner, Willi Unsoeld, were members of an expedition, that was attempting to reach the summit from the Nepalese southern side of Everest on two routes. The majority of expedition members used the same route that had been employed ten years earlier by the first men to conquer the mountain, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary. This entailed negotiating the Valley of Silence and the flank of Lhotse to the South Col and onwards over the southeast ridge to the peak.
Hornbein and Unsoeld, however, chose a different route.
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