Archives West Finding Aid

Dr. Otto Trott earned his medical degree at the University of Freiburg in 1936. Part Jewish, he emigrated to the United States in 1937 to escape persecution. He completed a residency in Syracuse, N.Y., then moved to Seattle in 1939 to work for the King County Public Health Department. He joined Seattle's mountaineering community and became a founding member of the Ski Patrol on Mount Baker, where he kept a cabin. The mountain's "Ottobahn" run bears his name. During World War II, Trott was placed in a Tennessee internment camp where he developed an anti-venom serum for bites from black widow spiders as camp doctor. He became a naturalized citizen in 1946. Otto Trott returned to the Northwest to practice medicine in Seattle and enjoy mountaineering in the North Cascades. With Bauer and mountaineer Ome Daiber, Trott created the Mountain Rescue Council that addressed rescue needs outside regular ski areas, which already were covered by the Ski Patrol. He helped develop gear and techniques drawn from European rescue models but tailored for American conditions. Otto Trott won many awards for his rescue efforts and for work with the Capitol Hill Clinic and Swedish Medical Center/Seattle. Otto Trott and Erick Larson climbed Mount Index in 1940. They started up from Lake Serene and climbed steadily to the summit. They found a stick on the summit placed by the earlier Lionel Chute party climb from 1929. At the time Otto and Erick made their climb, nobody in the Mountaineers knew of the earlier ascent.