The Call of Everest Read online

  In 1949, the Kingdom of Nepal opened its doors to foreigners. The following year, American climber Charles Houston and his father, Oscar, gained permission to travel into the Solukhumbu region to survey the south side of Mount Everest. They invited Tilman, and despite his misogynous attitude, he accepted, even though a woman was coming along. “Hitherto I had not regarded a woman as an indispensable part of the equipage of a Himalaya journey but one lives and learns. Anyhow, with a doctor to heal us, a woman to feed us, and a priest to pray for us, I felt we could face the future with some confidence.” Their assessment of the south approach to Everest was gloomy. Houston thought the icefall might be “forced” but admitted it didn’t look promising. Tilman was more succinct: “Impossible. No route.”

  The Everest reconnaissance was Tilman’s last foray into the world’s highest peaks. A practical man, he assessed his years in the Himalaya, his current physical condition, and his level of motivation and determined that it was time to move on. Long and dangerous voyages to Patagonia and Greenland brought him many more years of adventure, and, perhaps fittingly, on November 1, 1977, he sailed with a crew in the direction of the Falkland Islands. He was never heard from again.

  In 1951, Shipton was invited to lead another reconnaissance trip to the south side of Mount Everest. Accompanying a stellar group of Britons were several Kiwis, including Edmund Hillary. Almost immediately they were confronted with the dangerously unstable tangled mass of snow and ice known as the Khumbu Icefall. Shipton felt the way was too dangerous, but Hillary disagreed, saying, “I knew the only way to attempt this mountain was to modify the old standards of safety and justifiable risk and to meet the dangers as they came; to drive through regardless. Care and caution would never make a route through the Icefall.” They managed to cross the icefall to the Western Cwm, but a huge crevasse spanning the entire valley turned them back.

  Returning to Kathmandu, Shipton learned that the Swiss had secured a permit for the following year, meaning he would have to wait his turn. While the Swiss attempted Everest in 1952, Shipton had to be content with nearby Cho Oyu, which he and his team did not summit. The Swiss, meanwhile, very nearly reached the top of Everest. Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay ascended the Southeast Ridge to within 800 feet of the summit. Shipton set off for an exploratory visit of the Barun and Arun Valleys, rather than returning home to take charge for the attempt the next year, and that decision would prove to be his undoing.

  The Brits were determined more than ever to put someone on top in 1953. At headquarters, the committee fussed and fumed. They just had to get up this thing. What was wrong? After all these attempts, some key ingredient must be missing. Aha! It must be leadership. Perhaps a military man could organize the effort properly. They offered joint leadership to Shipton and Col. John Hunt, a man with limited high-altitude experience. Shipton resigned on the spot. It was clearly a slight—even an insult. But maybe the committee had a point. Charles Warren wrote that, despite his undying respect for Shipton, the decision was probably the right one. “I for one can understand why he was not eventually chosen to do so—the truth of the matter is that, by that time, his heart was not truly in it. Having discovered the route to the top by way of the South Col, he had really played his part, as the great explorer he was. For him it was the discovery that counted, not the conquest.”

  VOICES

  WHERE WAS MALLORY GOING?

  After George Mallory was killed on Everest, his sisters secretly questioned whether their parents had any idea “what George was,” whether they understood him and his wife Ruth at all. Now—when we have turned over every known word Mallory ever wrote, have retold his life story and reviewed his last climb endlessly, when we have probed even his sexuality—do we yet know what he was about? We remember him almost exclusively in mountaineering terms, but—compared to today’s career mountaineers—the time he actually spent climbing was episodic. That’s not to say he wasn’t brilliant on rock, nor that he didn’t derive intense spiritual sustenance from the hills and from the friendships he made among them. But you couldn’t say Mallory “lived for mountains” when there was so much else in his life. It might repay us to take one further look at his story, putting aside the conventional acceptance that his premature death on that emblematic peak was the culmination of a personal quest …

  A CHARMING MAN

  From the obituaries of Mallory, written by friends and others, you get a picture of a man with strong moral conscience, honesty, courage and a careless charm. Words most frequently employed by those who loved him were: sensitive, intelligent, chivalrous, impish and, as we would expect, fearless. Cottie Sanders rejoiced in his “appetite for beauty,” saying no one ever had a greater genius for appreciation. Another word that recurs is “introspective.” Geoffrey Young praised “his educational energy, his tenacious introspectiveness, that hunted to its source every interest but self-interest …” George was known affectionately as Sir Galahad; but was his Grail the highest mountain in the world, as it often seems, or was it a higher level of culture and understanding? We know that Ruth, who was a firm believer in an Afterlife, found it easier to reconcile her loss by believing that there was something better that he was ready for.

  In many ways, Mallory was a slow developer. Though the gifts were there almost from the start, it took time for him to harness them. And that’s what makes his death the more tragic: there is so much more we might have seen, had he lived. Frustratingly, it is still a hazy picture we have of what he planned through his work with the League of Nations Union or the Extra Mural Studies Board, and whether or not these two were interconnected. He passionately believed in the liberating effect of education, yet he may have gravitated towards politics—who knows? With his obvious charisma, even before the television era, we can imagine him reaching widening audiences via lecture halls and the radio. He could have been a candidate for popular programmes like The Brains Trust. It is impossible to envisage what impact he may have made throughout the thirties and the forties when he would have been at his career peak.

  HISTORY REMEMBERS

  He himself, were he to look back at his abbreviated life, might fancy he had failed. Even his desire to be a writer had borne limited fruits in his lifetime, though now we have read almost every word he so prolifically got down in letters to family and friends—and we know he had the gift of communication that can leap generations.

  More mementoes continue to turn up … As I write this, another letter, written a few days before he left that last time, is up for sale on eBay. An Everest ice-axe emerged recently, with the provenance of assistance given by Mallory to the emergent Pinnacle Club (a dedicated women’s climbing club founded in 1921). Rumour hints at other intimate correspondences. Optimistically, I think we can expect to learn more.

  —AUDREY SALKELD British author Audrey Salkeld has written numerous books and television scripts on mountaineering and exploration.

  TENZING AND HILLARY

  When the British team requested the services of Tenzing Norgay the following year, he was initially reluctant to go, so loyal was he to Lambert. But the Swiss climber urged him: “Take the chance. It doesn’t matter who it is with.” Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon came close to succeeding in 1953, reaching the South Summit at 8,750 meters, but their oxygen tanks were unreliable. The prize was left to the oddly matched couple: Edmund Hillary at six foot three and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay at five foot eight. They reached the top of Everest for the first time on May 29, 1953.

  What a team effort it was. The day before, George Lowe, Alf Gregory, and Ang Nyima carried more than 40 pounds each, cutting steps all the way to the last camp at around 8,500 meters in support of Hillary and Tenzing. After dumping their loads, they left the two for their last night of preparation. At 6:30 the next morning, Hillary and Tenzing crawled out of their tent, hoisted their 30 pounds of oxygen gear, connected their masks, and started up. Things went smoothly until they reached a formidable-looking obstacle—the Hillary Step, as it would
later be called. Hillary led the way and Tenzing followed. From there they just had to continue up the ridge until there was no place left to climb.

  When the British reporter assigned to the team, James Morris, realized that the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II would take place three days later, he scrambled to get the news back to London in time. What a gift for the young queen! Written in code, the telegram transmitted the amazing news: “Summit of Everest reached on 29 May by Hillary and Tenzing.” As the crowds gathered in the streets of London during the night of June 1, in eager anticipation of the royal parades the next day, the newspaper headlines screamed, EVEREST CLIMBED.

  Morris called it the “last innocent adventure,” but the international wrangling that occurred afterward almost destroyed the special relationship between Hillary and Tenzing. The Nepali government tried to convince Tenzing to claim he was the first to reach the summit. They even tricked him into signing a document stating that fact, though it was untrue. (The pair maintained their “reaching the summit together” message up until 1993, when Hillary announced that he had stepped up first.)

  HILLARY AND NORGAY were all smiles after their successful summit. The lives of both men would be forever changed because of their newfound fame. Hillary would comment, “I didn’t have any concept of the reaction from the media and from the general public.”

  Three countries then claimed Tenzing as their own. He recalled that for the first 38 years of his life, nobody cared what nationality he was: Tibetan, Indian, or Nepali. Suddenly everyone wanted him. “But now everything was pushing and pulling. I was no longer a man, but some sort of doll to be hung from a string. It must be I who reached the top first—a yard, a foot, an inch, ahead of Hillary. For some I must be Indian, for others Nepali. The truth did not matter.”

  Everest had an enormous impact on the lives of its first summiteers. Of all that reached the top, Hillary gave back the most to the country that made him famous. His creation of, and commitment to, the Himalayan Trust was ongoing, generous, and meaningful. Schools, monasteries, and hospitals were constructed throughout the Khumbu region.

  Still, no accolades could approach those given to Tenzing Norgay. For millions, he became almost the manifestation of a god. His name became mythical, resonating as a talisman for future hope. When Hillary attended the unveiling of a statue honoring Tenzing’s life in Darjiling in 1997, he said, “I have never regarded myself as much of a hero but Tenzing, I believe, undoubtedly was. From humble beginnings he had achieved the summit of the world.”

  VOICES

  THE CONQUEST OF THE SUMMIT

  I check the oxygen sets again. The flow rates seem all right. Turning to Tenzing, I say: “How do you feel?”

  He just grins and waves his hand upward toward the ridge. I lead off once more, cutting steps. My ax work is still pretty rhythmical and relaxed; I’ve been chipping away for well over an hour, but, so far, I’ve avoided the kind of tension that can turn up a sore arm.

  One flight of steps, then another, and another. We follow the ridge as it curves around to the right, wondering where the top can possibly be, or if it exists at all. I cut around the back of one crag, only to have a higher one stare me in the face. It seems endless.

  Tiring, I try to save time on one stretch by skipping the step cutting and relying on my crampons. After a few yards I go back to my ax; the angle is still too steep, too dangerous. The zest we have known at the top of the rock step is draining away. Dully, grimly, I hack a route around still another knob.

  STANDING ON TOP OF THE WORLD

  Suddenly I realize that the ridge ahead doesn’t slope up, but down. I look quickly to my right. There, just above me, is a softly rounded, snow-covered little bump about as big as a haystack.

  The summit.

  One last question concerns me: is the top itself just a large, delicately poised cornice? If it is, someone else can have the honor of stepping on it.

  I cut my way cautiously up the next few feet, probing ahead with my pick. The snow is solid, firmly packed. We stagger up the final stretch. We are there. Nothing above us, a world below.

  I feel no great elation at first, just relief and a sense of wonder. Then I turn to Tenzing and shake his hand. Even through the snow glasses, the ice-encrusted mask, the knitted helmet, I can see that happy, flashing smile. He throws his arms around my shoulders, and we thump each other, and there is very little we can say or need to say.

  My watch shows 11:30. Two hours and a half it has taken us from the South Peak; five hours from our tent. It seems a bit longer.

  PHOTOS PROVE SUMMIT WAS REACHED

  I turn off my oxygen and remove my mask. In the thin air of 29,000 feet my breathing becomes slightly more rapid, but not too uncomfortable. I fish out the camera I have kept warm inside my shirt; it will be necessary to take shots down every ridge if we’re to prove conclusively that we’ve been up here …

  Scooping a small hole in the snow, Tenzing buries a few offerings to the gods that many Buddhists believe inhabit these heights: a small blue pencil given him by his daughter, a bar of chocolate, some biscuits, a cluster of lollypops. I place near these gifts a little crucifix that John Hunt has received from a friend and passed over to me on the South Col.

  It’s time to go down now. I replace my oxygen mask, suck the air in gratefully, and move off without a backward glance. Reaction has set in; we both are tired.

  We crampon along the steps I have cut, moving fast. We know the route; we know what’s ahead and what isn’t; the certainty gives us confidence and a lift to our stride … An ice-ax belay won’t hold in the soft snow. If one of us begins to slide, both of us will enjoy a 10,000-foot jump without benefit of parachute.

  —SIR EDMUND HILLARY a beekeeper from New Zealand, Hillary was knighted in 1953 and dedicated his life to philanthropy on behalf of the Himalaya.

  NEW ROUTES

  The next big breakthrough occurred in 1960, when the Chinese/Tibetans embarked on a massive 214-member expedition whose leader was none other than Mao Zedong. They chose the North Ridge, featuring the notoriously difficult rock steps where Mallory and Irvine were last sighted. The Chinese apparently solved the problem with a human ladder arrangement that, when they dispensed with boots and crampons, actually worked. But they were still a long ways from the summit. Not until 4:25 a.m. on May 25 did Wang Fuzhou and Qu Yinhua (Chinese) claim the summit with Gongbu (Tibetan). Their ascent wasn’t acknowledged for years, a fact that Everest historian Audrey Salkeld chastised Western climbers for doubting. Skepticism was so entrenched that the Chinese felt compelled to do it again—in 1975. This time they brought a ladder for the steps, a feature that remains on the mountain to this day.

  AMEE ’63

  By the time the Americans arrived in 1963, Everest had been explored on two of its three main ridges: Only the West Ridge remained. But what the Americans needed most of all was to make the ascent. No American had done that, and it was high time. They were led by Norman Dyhrenfurth, a Swiss filmmaker with the looks of a film star and a personality to match, who had been the official photographer on the 1952 Swiss attempt. Sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the American Mount Everest Expedition (AMEE) team included Jim Whittaker, Barry Bishop, Lute Jerstad, Willi Unsoeld, and Thomas Hornbein. Logistics were handled by Nepal veteran Jimmy Roberts. This was an expedition destined for success. Victory was expected, not only from fellow Americans but also from the expedition’s sponsors. Dyhrenfurth’s initial plan was to do the grand slam: Everest, Lhotse, and Nuptse. But early on, Hornbein, an anesthesiologist from Seattle, and Unsoeld, deputy director of the Peace Corps in Nepal, began to imagine a grander plan—a new route on Everest.

  Their dream presented daunting challenges for the team. Their discussions went on endlessly about where, and how, and when, and with what support. Democracy is a wonderful concept, but not necessarily when climbing a big mountain. Reaching the summit was imperative, so the South Col route, they decided, was the first priority. The West Ridge
team would have to be content with what was left over. Once the summit was reached by the South Col route, the West Ridgers would get their moment.

  Which they did. What made Hornbein and Unsoeld’s such an iconic climb was that they reached a point of no return. They had only each other. Even after they had summited via what became known as the Hornbein Couloir, they then had to assist their teammates on the south side of the mountain in a frighteningly cold 28,000-foot (8,535-meter) open bivouac.

  They weren’t the first Americans to reach the summit. That honor was achieved by the South Col team, led by Jim Whittaker and Nawang Gombu. The two were followed by Lute Jerstad and Barry Bishop, who ended up sharing that desperate bivouac with the West Ridge boys near the top. They all survived, but the cost in digits was high: Unsoeld lost nine toes and Bishop lost all ten.

  Everest changed the destiny of those 1963 climbers—certainly for Whittaker, whose social circle revolved around the Kennedy clan following his Everest triumph. Tragedy followed Unsoeld, who would lose not only his own life in the mountains, but also that of his daughter, Nanda Devi Unsoeld. Perhaps more reflective, Hornbein continued to search for the meaning of his Everest success: “Why was I here? I seemed to be hunting for answers to questions I couldn’t even ask. What difference could Everest make even if I got to the top? What was up there to make me any wiser?” It would take him years to begin to discover the answers.

  THE LAST GREAT PROBLEM

  Not until 1975 was another major route claimed on Everest, when Chris Bonington’s Southwest Face expedition placed Dougal Haston, Doug Scott, Peter Boardman, and Pertemba Sherpa on the summit. But that landmark ascent was not accomplished on the first try. An earlier attempt to tackle this “last great problem” took place in 1971 under the leadership of Norman Dyhrenfurth, a two-time Everest veteran. It ended in defeat and interpersonal warfare. The second assault took place in 1972, this time led by Dr. Karl Herrligkoffer, who invited along British climbers Don Whillans, Hamish MacInnes, and Doug Scott. The three Brits managed to function under Herrligkoffer’s famously authoritative style, but none of them was able to find a way to the top.