Lincoln Hall

Friend and fellow mountaineer Greg Mortimer, who was with Lincoln at the end, said: "It was very peaceful in the end, around 11:45 last night. Lincoln got into quiet, rhythmic breathing—it was almost meditative—and then he quietly slipped away". Hall lived in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales with his wife and two sons, who survived him.

In 1987 Hall was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to mountaineering and in 2010 he won the Australian Geographic Society's Lifetime of Adventure award. He was a life member of the Australian National University Mountaineering Club. Hall died of mesothelioma aged 56 on 20 March 2012.

Hall died on 20 March 2012 at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, after suffering from mesothelioma. He had been exposed to asbestos while working as a builder in the 1960s.

Hall's story was later featured in the I Shouldn't Be Alive episode, "Left for Dead on Everest" (16 February 2011).

A second documentary, Miracle on Everest, based on Hall's book Dead Lucky, premiered in 2008 on National Geographic Channel in the USA and on ABC1 in Australia.

Hall wrote two books about his experience: Dead Lucky: Life after death on Mount Everest (2007) and Alive In The Death Zone: Mount Everest Survival (2008).

Hall narrowly survived after his ascent of Mount Everest in 2006. He was left for dead at an altitude of 8700m while descending from the summit on 25 May 2006. He had fallen ill from a form of altitude sickness, probably cerebral edema, that caused him to hallucinate and become confused. According to reports, Hall's Sherpa guides attempted to rescue him for hours. However, as night began to fall their oxygen supplies diminished and snow blindness set in. Expedition leader Alexander Abramov eventually ordered the guides to leave the apparently dead Hall on the mountain and return to camp. A statement was later released announcing his death to his friends and family.

Dateline NBC aired Left for Dead on Mount Everest, an Emmy Award-nominated documentary special, in 2006.

The successful Dunagiri trip by the ANUMC forged the Hall and Macartney-Snape partnership, setting the stage for their Himalayan mountaineering careers including their 1984 Mount Everest Expedition.

After Dunagiri, Hall's mountaineering career went from strength to strength as he participated in and led numerous climbing adventures around the world, including many first ascents by Australian climbers. Amongst these were two expeditions to climb Mount Everest in Nepal (including the first Australian ascent in 1984); the first ascent of Mt Minto in the Admiralty Mountains of Antarctica (1998); and ascents of other notable peaks including Annapurna II (7963m) in Nepal, Makalu (8481m) on the China-Nepal border, and Carstensz Pyramid in Irian Jaya, Indonesia.

Hall had his real start with mountaineering when he participated in the Australian National University Mountaineering Club expeditions to New Zealand from 1975 to 1978. This culminated in the ANUMC 1978 expedition to the Himalayan peak Dunagiri (7066m) in India. Hall and his climbing partner Tim Macartney-Snape (Australia) were invited by Expedition Leader Peter Cocker to join him at Col Camp so the pair could force through a route through to the summit ridge. They did so then made an audacious push for the summit after spending a night out on the mountain. Hall was pivotal in the successful summit bid by Macartney-Snape.

Lincoln Ross Hall OAM (19 December 1955 – 20 March 2012) was a veteran Australian mountain climber, adventurer, author and philanthropist. Hall was part of the first Australian expedition to climb Mount Everest in 1984, which successfully forged a new route. Hall reached the summit of the mountain on his second attempt in 2006, miraculously surviving the night at 8,700 m (28,543 ft) on descent, after his family was told he had died.