EverestHistory.com: Bob Cormack

It's 1976, the year of the American Bicentennial. If you're an American climber what do you do to celebrate? Of course, you head to the mountains.

If you're Bob Cormack that mountain is the biggest of all -- Everest.

It was autumn of '76 when the relatively small team of eleven climbers and thirty Sherpas, led by thirty-eight year-old State-Department lawyer, Phil Trimble, attempted to ascend Everest. Traveling with the expedition was a six-man TV crew for CBS Sports, who filmed and help finance the operation. Along with Bob Cormack and Chris Chandler, who would eventually summit, were Barbara and Gerard Roach of Colorado, who hoped to be the first husband and wife to summit Everest. Unfortunately events and the fall weather were against them and they would not summit.

On October the 26th Cormack and Chandler became the 56th and 57th summits of Everest. Unlike some previous teams the two men were able to avoid a dangerous bivouac at high altitude and arrived safely at Camp IV after dark. 

Though there were some difficulties with what have been described as "bureaucratic foul-ups", the expedition did put two people on the summit of Everest and the documentary film of the expedition "Everest: On Top of the World" aired on CBS.

It was like squeezing through a closing door!

- Bob Cormack after returning from Everest's summit in 1976

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