The Call of Everest Read online

  The Great Trigonometrical Survey finally reached the southernmost foothills of the Himalaya in 1847. Unable to gain access to the Kingdom of Nepal, surveyors were forced to work in the Tarai, a strip of land to the south, in order to survey the great peaks of the Himalaya more than 100 miles away. Andrew Waugh, surveyor general, measured distant “snowy peaks” from Sonakhoda, below the Darjiling hills near the eastern end of the Himalaya, in the autumn of 1847, after the monsoon season. One peak stood out among the others, now known as Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world at 28,169 feet (8,586 meters). Waugh did not announce his measurements for several more years, in part because of another peak observed on the Nepal-Tibet border—a distant giant given the name Gamma (γ), from the Greek alphabet.

  LAMBTON’S GREAT THEODOLITE, used throughout the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, could measure both horizontal and vertical axes but was less than portable. Weighing in at half a ton, it took 12 men to carry it.

  At the same time, in November 1847, a surveying assistant named John Armstrong also focused his surveying instrument on “γ” from a position farther west. He named the peak “b” and assigned to it a preliminary elevation of 28,799 feet (8,778 meters). Waugh distrusted the elevation calculations of “γ-b” and decided to wait for further measurements and recalculations before making an announcement. Over the next two years, Waugh sent two surveyors to the Tarai for additional sightings and measurements, but clouds and distance repeatedly thwarted their attempts to gain more data.

  After several attempts, in 1849 James Nicolson finally obtained several vertical and horizontal angles from multiple stations closer to this mysterious peak than any surveyor had ever been; his preliminary calculations yielded an elevation of approximately 30,200 feet (9,205 meters). But Nicolson’s initial calculations did not take light refraction into account, which can introduce significant error into height calculations.

  Several more years passed until Waugh’s “chief computer” at the time, a brilliant Bengali mathematician named Radhanath Sikdar, most likely became the first to determine the first accurate elevation of the peak in question. In March 1856, Andrew Waugh finally made the formal announcement. In a 14-paragraph document, paragraph 5 reads: “We have for some years known that this mountain is higher than any hitherto measured in India and most probably it is the highest in the whole world.” He named the peak Mount Everest, or Himalayan Peak XV, locating it at 27° 59′ 16.7″ N, 86° 58’ 5.9″ E and reporting its elevation as 29,002 feet (8,840 meters) above sea level.

  British surveyors preferred to name Himalayan peaks with their indigenous names, if such names could be found, yet Waugh was unable to learn any local names, Nepal being closed to foreigners. He named the mountain after his predecessor, Sir George Everest (pronounced EEV-er-est by the family), who did not endorse the use of his name in this manner. Nevertheless, the name Mount Everest was subsequently approved in London by the Royal Geographic Society, and knowledge of Earth’s highest peak rapidly spread around the world.

  ROOTS BENEATH MOUNTAINS

  Scientific research on the geology and geophysics of great mountain ranges such as the Andes and Himalaya has a long history, with investigators not only trying to determine their origin but also attempting to answer basic questions such as: What holds these mountains up? Is there a maximum height they can never exceed? How is rock mass distributed within them?

  The answers to these questions address the basic nature of how mountains are geologically assembled. Trekking from Lukla to Everest Base Camp over the course of many days, I was often struck by the tremendous significance of these great mountains to the historical development of the geosciences worldwide. Essential scientific ideas have originated over the past 150 years in the study of these lofty peaks.

  One of the most impressive scientific outcomes of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India was the discovery that mountain ranges have deep crustal roots that extend down into the Earth’s uppermost mantle, analogous to the “roots” of an iceberg that extend well below sea level. Although 19th-century British surveyors in India knew that the mass of the Himalaya could influence the vertical angle of their survey plumb lines, a phenomenon known as astrogeodetic deflection, the geophysical details of why this happened were largely unknown.

  George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, came up with one analysis of the plumb line deflection. He postulated that deep roots of low-density crustal rock—granite, for example—lie beneath great mountain ranges, and thus a high mountain range is “density-compensated” by its deep crustal roots. Today we know that the Himalaya does have a massive, low-density crustal root, produced by the continental collision of India with Asia. The continental crust beneath the Greater Himalaya shoots down 44 miles—double the average thickness of continental crust in the nearby lowlands.

  TWO EARLY GEOLOGISTS

  At its best, science is an incremental process whereby new theories and ideas are built upon those of the past. Our understanding of how great mountain belts are created has evolved tremendously since the early development of plate tectonics in the 1960s. Many geoscientists deserve special mention; indeed, many historic climbing expeditions to the Himalaya have included one or more research geologists, including the 1963 American Mount Everest Expedition with glaciologist Maynard Miller. I have selected two geologists to highlight out of many distinguished Himalayan researchers. These two individuals are role models for younger geologists not only for their professional accomplishments but also for their strong character and spirit, which still echo among the great peaks and river gorges of the Himalaya.

  NOEL ODELL

  Noel Odell (1890-1987) had a long and distinguished career as a British geologist and accomplished mountaineer. He served with the Royal Engineers, worked in the mining and petroleum industries, and taught geology at Harvard and Cambridge universities, among others. Odell is perhaps most famous for being the last person to see George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine alive as they attempted to ascend the Northeast Ridge of Mount Everest on June 8, 1924. When Mallory and Irvine failed to return to camp, Odell twice climbed without oxygen to around 27,000 feet (about 8,200 meters) in hopes of finding them. His ability to climb so high was taken as proof for many years that the additional weight of supplemental oxygen equipment (called “English air” at the time) was detrimental to high-altitude mountaineering. In 1936, he was the first (with Bill Tilman) to successfully ascend Nanda Devi, which, at the time, was the highest mountain ever climbed. Odell returned to Everest in 1938 as a member of the Tilman expedition.

  NOEL ODELL WAS both a geologist and a mountaineer. He was a member of the British Everest expedition in 1924, where he was the last person to see George Mallory and Sandy Irvine alive. Odell was one of the first to study the geology of the Himalaya, collecting samples on that 1924 trip of what he first thought were fossils.

  During the 1924 expedition, Odell excitedly thought he had discovered fossils in a four-foot-thick bed of metamorphosed calcareous sandstone at about 25,500 feet (7,772 meters) on Mount Everest. Initially identifying them as casts of lamellibranch fossils (bivalve mollusks), he later recanted this claim, showing the supposed fossils to be instead cone-in-cone, an inorganic structure fairly common in clay-rich rocks. Odell also showed photomicrographs of indisputable crinoid fossils—leftovers of marine animals found in the summit limestone of Everest, confirming the observations of Augusto Gansser, who obtained summit samples from Swiss climbers in 1956 and the American team of 1963. Although Odell’s initial discovery proved to be inorganic, his pioneering work on the geology of Mount Everest earned him great respect.

  AUGUSTO GANSSER

  Augusto Gansser (1910-2012), a Swiss explorer and geologist, participated in the famous 1936 Swiss Himalayan expedition, crossing into the forbidden territory of Tibet dressed as a Buddhist pilgrim. He was one of the first Westerners to see the sacred Mount Kailash, headwaters of four major Himalayan rivers (the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, and Ghaghara,
which flows into the Ganges). He was impressed by the fact that the strata comprising Mount Kailash had been uplifted more than 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) and yet remained essentially horizontal, whereas surrounding rocks were highly tilted and deformed. Gansser also discovered the remains of ancient oceanic crust south of Kailash, which led to the naming of the plate tectonic boundary, or suture zone, between India and Asia. In this regard Gansser and his mentor, Arnold Heim, were decades ahead of their time in their interpretation of Himalayan geology.

  Gansser’s research took him back to the Himalaya for five field seasons in Bhutan, where he conducted more pioneering geologic work along the Tibetan border in uncharted mountains rising higher than 24,000 feet (7,300 meters). He published profusely, including the tome Geology of the Bhutan Himalaya (1983) and, most significantly, the definitive volume Geology of the Himalaya (1964), for which he produced a geologic map that spanned the entire length of the Himalayan-Tibetan region (from longitude 70° E to 95° E) at 1:2,000,000 scale—a masterpiece of geological synthesis and unimaginable hard work. Gansser was honored with the title of Baba Himalaya—Father of the Himalaya—by the University of Peshawar for his extensive pioneering work on the geology of the region.

  SWISS GEOLOGIST AND explorer Augusto Gansser was a member of the Swiss Himalayan expedition, the first to study the geology of the range through Nepal to Tibet. Disguising himself as a Buddhist pilgrim and concealing his hammer, camera, and sketchbook, he crossed into the forbidden territory of Tibet. He was one of the first Westerners to see the holy mountain of Kangrinboqe Feng.

  VOICES

  ODELL’S LAST GLIMPSE

  Noel Odell awoke early on the morning of June 8, 1924, and set off, up toward Camp VI, full of optimism for his friends George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, who were heading for the summit of Mount Everest. At about 26,000 feet, he looked up toward the highest reaches of the mountain. As he did so, the cloud that had been building since the late morning parted, affording him a view of the Northeast Ridge and the summit. In his diary he recorded: “At 12.50 saw M & I on ridge nearing base of final pyramid.” He was the last to see them alive.

  STILL A MYSTERY

  This last sighting has been minutely scrutinized and debated ever since, but no one has ever been able to prove that he did not see Mallory and Irvine so close to the summit. Odell’s contribution to the 1924 Mount Everest expedition is often confined to this one observation, but actually his role on the trek and on the mountain was of far greater importance than history would suggest. For one thing, he turned out to be the man who best acclimatized to the altitude and was the only person who climbed above Camp IV to look for the climbers when they disappeared. For another, perhaps less obvious, he was a mentor for Sandy Irvine. He and Sandy had first been on expedition together in 1923 when they crossed the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen with a four-man sledge party. Sandy’s performance gave Odell the confidence to recommend him to the Mount Everest Committee, who were seeking a “superman” for the 1924 expedition.

  In fact, he and Sandy had met even earlier than that, in 1919, when Odell was on honeymoon in North Wales. He and his wife had been walking in the Carneddau, the northernmost range of hills in Wales, when they encountered an intrepid young motorcyclist on the top of Foel Vras, some 3,000 feet above the village of Llanfairfechan. The motorcyclist approached the Odells and asked them for directions to the village. They pointed out the track and watched as he motored off across the rough ground and down the steep track. It was only when Odell retold that story in a tent on Spitsbergen that Sandy recognized himself and revealed that it was he who had been the motorcyclist. From that moment, a bond deeper than superficial friendship was established, and during his training for the expedition, Sandy wrote regularly to Odell, sharing his delight in everything he was doing.

  BACK TO THE TENT

  After Odell had seen Mallory and Sandy going strong for the top, he went on to Camp VI and was amused by the tent, which was strewn with bits of oxygen apparatus. Sandy turned all his tents into workshops, and this was no different. Odell left some food and descended to Camp V.

  Sandy Irvine and George Mallory never returned to their tent. They had died on the mountain, but of course Odell was unaware of this. He went back up to Camp VI the next day and again the following day in the hope that he would see some sign of his friends. We know he saw nothing, but few stop to imagine how sad he must have been when he realized he would have to break the news, first to climbing leader Edward Norton and then to the rest of the world, that the great George Mallory and his young climbing partner, Sandy Irvine, had perished so close to the summit.

  Odell is far more than an historical cipher. He is central to the 1924 Everest mystery.

  —JULIE SUMMERS A British author and historian, Julie Summers has published ten books, including Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine.

  CONTINENTS COLLIDING

  We now understand that the Himalayan mountain belt is the result of a massive collision between two landmasses, India and Asia, building on the theory of continental drift formulated in the early 20th century by the German scientist Alfred Wegener. Drawing from rock formations and the fossil record on either side of the modern Atlantic Ocean, Wegener hypothesized that a giant supercontinent existed around 250 million years ago, a supercontinent we now call Pangaea. As this supercontinent slowly broke apart and the continents “drifted” to their present positions, India slowly made its way north toward Asia as the Tethys Ocean basin closed ahead of it. As the last scraps of the oceanic crust were subducted into the mantle, India collided with Asia to uplift the Himalaya.

  Wegener’s work on continental drift was based entirely on the geology of continents, since the technology needed to explore ocean basins simply did not exist in his day. All of that changed in the years following World War II with the rapid increase in technology and our ability to explore space and deep oceans. What was found amounts to nothing less than one of the greatest scientific revolutions in the history of scientific inquiry—the birth of plate tectonics in the late 1960s. We now understand that the uppermost layer of the Earth is composed of a mosaic of semirigid plates that slide over a weak layer in the upper mantle and interact along plate boundaries. The north flank of the Himalayan mountains marks the boundary between the Indian-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate. GPS (global positioning system) satellite measurements confirm that even today, India is moving northeast at approximately 1.5 inches per year relative to Siberia.

  SNOW CAN HARDLY cling to the dark North and South Faces of Everest (at left). Although the summit of the mountain is composed of marine limestone, the rocks also carry the subtle signature of tectonic deformation and heat associated with the uplift of the Greater Himalaya.

  The Himalaya took shape during a multistage collision involving several smaller terranes (or mini-plates). It is a story that takes us back to the floor of the Tethys Ocean, 480 to 470 million years ago, and the shelly carbonate sediment deposits on the Chomolungma shelf. Layers of sediment accumulated on the CS seafloor and became compacted by pressure, cemented with calcium carbonate, and recrystallized into hard limestone, entombing the invertebrate marine organisms as fossils in solid rock. As the loose collection of terranes inched northward, one ocean basin closed ahead through subduction—the Paleo-Tethys—while another opened behind through seafloor spreading—the Neo-Tethys. Southern Asia, including the present-day Tibetan Plateau, was assembled through three collisional events that added new crustal blocks from north to south, a process known as tectonic accretion—the dominant process by which continents have grown outward throughout Earth’s history. When India eventually collided with Eurasia, a fourth major suture zone was created. This enormous collision weakened the lithosphere of southern Eurasia and, as a result, India was able to punch northward ever deeper. It has been estimated that India moved north into Eurasia more than 1,250 miles over the past 50 million years. This combination of partial subduction, thrust faulting, and fold
ing of upper crustal rocks created the Himalayan mountains.

  BEDROCK ANATOMY OF MOUNT EVEREST

  Topographically, Mount Everest is a massive pyramid with three great faces and three ridges leading to the summit. The Northeast Ridge extends three miles from the summit to a col, or gap, that separates the East Rongbuk and Kangshung Glaciers. A mile down from the summit on the Northeast Ridge, a shoulder marks the top of the North Ridge, which subdivides the North Face and separates Everest from Changtse, or North Peak. The West Ridge, first climbed by Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld on the 1963 American expedition, extends about three miles in a west-northwest direction from the summit to Lho La, a col between Khumbutse and Everest. The short Southeast Ridge, about one mile long, curves downward to the South Col, which separates Everest and Lhotse.

  Between these ridges stand the three great faces of Everest: the North Face, the exceedingly steep Southwest Face, and the icy Kangshung Face. Each face has its own personality, created by the direction it faces, the hardness of its rock layers, the structural features that cut through, and the dip direction, or incline, of transecting rock units. The long Northeast Ridge is a succession of overlapping sedimentary rock layers dipping down the length of the ridge to the northeast. The First, Second, and Third Steps on the Northeast Ridge are formed by the down-dip ends of rock layers, resting on layers below like overlapping roofing shingles. On the shorter but steeper Southeast Ridge, the dip of rock layers is “into the mountain,” thus creating blunt, steep steps like the South Summit and Hillary Step.