Hiker, 44, Lost His Life Taking On but Another Challenge

Avid hiker Paul Hornack was right where he loved to be--face to face with one of the world’s most stunning mountain views--when he stumbled off a New Zealand ridge and plunged to his death this week.

The 44-year-old Huntington Beach resident “always loved to get to the top of the mountain, whatever it was,” said his father, John Hornack, 69, of Hazleton, Pa.

“He loved a challenge, of any kind,” he said. “The harder the problem, the more he liked it.”

A management consultant with clients across the globe, Hornack discovered hiking just two years ago and tackled it with his usual determined passion, his father said.

He took classes, bought the finest equipment and began attempting to reach peaks from Hawaii to Brazil. Last winter, he was part of a group caught in a heavy blizzard on Mt. Ranier in Washington. They tried twice to reach the top before turning back and creeping down in white-out conditions holding hands, the elder Hornack said.

“But he didn’t stop, even after that,” he said.

Hornack had scaled other New Zealand slopes during a 10-day holiday trip with a close friend last week. On Monday, a hot clear summer day, the two met with a professional guide and began the trek up a ridge on the approach to 12,340-foot-high Mt. Cook, New Zealand’s most popular hiking destination.

They scaled the first tough section and walked wide-eyed along an easier section, drinking in the panoramic view.

“That’s the place to be, lad, you’re right there looking at the ‘Big Gem.’ That’s what we call Mt. Cook,” said Bruce Janes, 37, leader of the government search-and-rescue team that brought Hornack’s body off Ball Pass by helicopter. “They were right there, right there where you want to be.”

In what police said was a freak accident, Hornack tripped off the side of the level dirt trail onto the treacherous western side.

“It’s a steep slope, all loose-rocked and rubbly,” Janes said. “It’s a very serious place to fall off.”

As his friend, Dennis Raymond Richard, and the guide, Rachel Brown, watched horrified, Janes said, Hornack fell about 40 feet to a small ledge, bounced off and tumbled an additional 90 feet to land on loose, porridge-like New Zealand stone called grey wacke.

Brown radioed for help while racing down the slope to reach him. She felt a pulse, and immediately began efforts to revive him, authorities said. By the time the rescue helicopter arrived 20 minutes later, he was dead. Additional resuscitation efforts proved futile.

“Paul was a wonderful boy. We’re going to miss him so much,” said his father, a retired machine shop lathe operator.

Hornack had planned to return today to Huntington Beach, where he lived with his girlfriend in a townhouse. But on Tuesday, his family in Hazleton, where he was born and grew up, made arrangements to bring his body back.

As an employee at Anderson Consulting in Southern California, he had clients in Brazil, Japan, Korea, Australia and elsewhere. He went back to some of those areas for hiking trips, his father said.

He graduated near the top of his class at Hazleton High School, earned a degree from Princeton University on an academic scholarship and played on the school’s soccer team. He earned another degree from Cornell University and a third from the Wharton School of Business, his father said.

“He was at the peak of his career too; he was up for a promotion. They put his name in for partnership,” said his father.

A woman who answered Hornack’s work phone said: “We’re not going to be making any comment. It’s too hard right now.”

Janes said the fatality was a blow as well to the tight-knit mountaineering community at the base of Mt. Cook. Brown is skilled and well-liked, and it was the first fatality she had experienced, he said. He described her as “completely distraught.”

“All fatalities are difficult. We do about 30 rescues a year. The majority of the time they’re injuries and we bring them out.

Times staff writer Jeff Gottlieb contributed to this report.