Oldest Known Ascent: Tom Herbert, 51, Repeats Midnight Lighting (With Video!)

Tom Herbert is as much “Yosemite climbing” as you get. He’s the son of Golden Age climber TM Herbert, the dry-humored, big-wall first ascentionist who partnered with the sport’s best, including Yvon Chouinard, Tom Frost, and Royal Robbins. In addition to pioneering classics such as the Muir Wall (VI 5.10 A2+) on El Cap and the Chouinard-Herbert (5.11c, 1,400’) on Sentinel, TM worked at the Yosemite Mountaineering School guiding clients in the Valley and Tuolumne Meadows.

TM led his son up many long routes in Yosemite as a child, and at 18, Tom began guiding as well.

Today, at 51, Tom splits his time between Yosemite West and Reno, Nevada where he works as a hospitalist at Renown Regional Medical Center.

While I was climbing with Tom in Yosemite last week, he pointed out the cave in Camp 4 where his dad bandit-camped for 30 years. “That’s where we could always find him,” Tom said. “And the rangers only caught him there once.”

In Camp 4, I helped Tom carry 17 crash pads over to Midnight Lightning (V8) and watched as he ran two laps. He first climbed it 32 years ago in 1989 and has repeated it many times since. In 2015 he and his son Tommy did it together.

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