From the south, Mount Everest (8,848 metres) resembles a medieval fortress, its triangular summit, the keep, guarded by the turreted walls of the outer bailey; Lhotse, fourth highest mountain in the world, is a massive corner tower linking the high curtain wall of Nuptse. The gateway to this fortress is the Khumbu Icefall, portcullised with séracs, moated with crevasses. Few mountain peaks are better guarded or have resisted so many assaults. There was no doubt concerning the whereabouts of the mountain or even of how to approach it from the south, as there had been in the case of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri, but there was a great deal of doubt as to whether it could be climbed from this direction.
British climbers had reached the Lho La before the war and had seen the entrance to the Khumbu Icefall, but the way to the peak itself was barred by the outlying spurs of the West Ridge and the South-West Face. The first westerners to approach Everest from the south were Bill Tilman and Charles Houston, who had attempted Everest and K2, respectively, in 1938. As members of a small trekking party, for them it must have been like venturing into an incredible Aladdin’s cave of treasures, of unknown, unclimbed peaks, of unspoilt villages that were the homes of the Sherpa people, of turbulent glacier torrents, lush vegetation, high pastures, mani walls and prayer flags. It is hardly surprising that they took little more than a cursory glance at the approach to Everest, walking a short way up the Khumbu Glacier to peer round the shoulder of Nuptse into the Icefall and Western Cwm. They could only see the steep buttresses of the South-West Face of Everest, which appeared to reach the South Col; as a result, their report was discouraging.
But even as they made their reconnaissance, a young, unknown climber of the post-war generation was also thinking of Everest. Mike Ward had started climbing in North Wales during the war, while still at school, had gone to Cambridge in 1943 to study medicine and climbed at every opportunity. With the end of the war, he was able to go out to the Alps. He had already shown himself to be a brilliant natural rock climber, and the thoroughness with which he researched and then pushed through his plans for a further Everest reconnaissance, despite Tilman’s unfavourable report, displayed his capacity as an organiser as well as a climber. Yet he was in the traditional mould of pre-war climbers, essentially amateur, knowing that however great his enthusiasm for climbing his career in medicine would always take priority.
He realised he was short on big mountain experience and therefore invited Bill Murray, a Scot who had led an expedition to the Garhwal Himalaya the previous year and had climbed extensively in Scotland both before and after the war. Murray’s books Mountaineering in Scotland and Undiscovered Scotland have become climbing classics. The other member of the team was to be Tom Bourdillon, one of the most outstanding of all the post-war young climbers.
Pre-war expeditions to Everest had been sponsored through an organisation called the Everest Committee, formed from members of both the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club. It was coming into existence once again, under the name of the Himalayan Committee, and was to play a very important role in the Everest expedition, but for the time being Mike Ward simply wanted its approval and blessing which, after some hesitation because of Tilman’s unfavourable reaction, was finally given.
Only a short time before they were ready to depart, Eric Shipton came on to the scene. Undoubtedly Britain’s most eminent mountaineer at this time, he had established himself, with Tilman, as an outstanding mountain explorer, surveying and exploring the Himalaya with small, lightweight expeditions. Shipton was more mountain explorer than technical climber for whom reaching the top of a mountain was just part of the experience as a whole and not an end in itself. Of average height and build, with bushy eyebrows shielding piercing blue eyes, he seemed to gaze straight through you to some distant mountain range. There was also a slightly absent-minded distance in his manner, not cold or aloof, for he was essentially a kind man, but a distance born, perhaps, of shyness, a certain inhibition of emotion. He did not enjoy the hurly-burly of big expeditions, their politics and ponderous slow movement, but he had been unable to resist the lure of Everest and had taken part in four pre-war Everest expeditions. His books were an inspiration to countless youngsters, including myself, who were just starting to climb. During the war he was British Consul-General in Kashgar, in Sinkiang, and had gone on to Kunming in China, but this had ended with the victory of the Communist forces and he arrived back in Britain, not at all sure what to do next. He was promptly invited to lead the Reconnaissance expedition.
Mike Ward and Bill Murray had already set out by sea when Shipton received a telegram from the President of the New Zealand Alpine Club, saying that four of his countrymen were climbing in the Garhwal Himalaya and asking if two of the could join the Everest Reconnaissance. Up to this point Shipton, who always favoured the smallest possible numbers, had resisted several applications to join the expedition, but on impulse, mainly because of good memories of climbing with New Zealander Dan Bryant on Everest in 1935, he accepted the proposal – even though it meant taking on two climbers whom none of them knew.
This also gave the four New Zealanders a very real problem – which two of the four should accept this opportunity. Ed Hillary, a big, raw-boned beekeeper, was an obvious candidate. Although having only started climbing at the comparatively late age of twenty-six, his physique was superb and, on the expedition in the Garhwal, he had been outstandingly the strongest. The second place in the team was open to question, however. The leader of the party, Earle Riddiford, was determined to go, even though George Lowe, a primary school teacher who combined a rich sense of humour with a great deal of climbing ability and determination, felt that not only was he stronger, but also that he and Hillary made a particularly good team. Nonetheless, it was Riddiford and Hillary who joined Shipton.
And so there were six climbers on the Everest Reconnaissance. They had a tough approach through the height of the monsoon from Jogbani in the south to reach the Upper Khumbu Valley on 29 September 1951. Bourdillon, Riddiford and Ward ventured into the Icefall, while Shipton and Hillary climbed a spur of Pumori to look into the Western Cwm. The view they got showed that Everest was undoubtedly climbable from the south, for they could now see right up the Cwm, the long easy slope of the Lhotse Face and the comparatively easy angle of the South-East Ridge leading down to the South Col. The way into the Western Cwm, however, lay through the daunting obstacle of the Khumbu Icefall.
This Icefall descends about 800 metres, a maze of tottering ice towers and blocks, of crevasses and huge holes, all of it shifting under the relentless pressure from the glacier above, and threatened by avalanche from the steep slopes on either side. It has always been one of Everest’s major hazards. It was a particularly formidable barrier for the first men to set foot upon it, being considerably larger and more complex than any icefall they had experienced. The two New Zealanders were at some advantage since they had been climbing all summer and the icefalls of the New Zealand Alps are bigger and more difficult than anything in Europe.
Their progress must be judged against this background. On their first attempt they got about three-quarters of the way up when they were hit by an avalanche and were lucky to escape without serious injury; they decided to leave the Icefall for a fortnight, in the hope of letting the snow settle. This also gave Shipton an opportunity to explore the mountains to the south of Everest, which I suspect he found much more intriguing than the challenge of the Icefall.
Returning to the fray, on 19 October, they were undoubtedly shaken when a complete section, which had seemed fairly stable, collapsed during the night, leaving behind an area of chaotic debris. When, at last, they reached the top of the Icefall they found that the way into the Western Cwm was barred by a huge crevasse that stretched from wall to wall. This was the place where Camp 1 is usually situated. Now a long way above their last camp, they were tired, stretched to the limit by the very level of the unknown, but the younger members of the team were keen to press on, while the older and more experienced decided that the risks were too high and they had seen enough. In retrospect, Shipton regretted this decision but, at the time, it seemed sensible. They had proved that Everest was feasible by this route.
Unfortunately, however, the British had lost the opportunity to confirm it. The Himalayan Committee, perhaps over-confident that Everest was a ‘British’ mountain, had not applied for permission for 1952 in time. A Swiss expedition had got in first. There was some discussion about making it a Swiss-British effort under joint leadership, but this came to nothing. The Swiss were given first chance and they nearly made it, with what was really a very small expedition. Although the team numbered twelve, only six of them were hard climbers; the rest were scientists or had a support role such as doctor or cameraman.
The Sherpa force numbered twenty, led by Tenzing Norkay, who had already gained a considerable reputation, not only as a sirdar, or foreman, of the Sherpas, but also as a climber in his own right. He was thirty-eight years old, tall and heavy by Sherpa standards, weighing over sixty-three kilograms. With his swept-back hair, strong, square-cut chin and broad smile, he had an almost European look which was reflected in his attitude to the mountains. Most of the Sherpas still regarded mountaineering purely as a job; Angtharkay, Herzog’s sirdar on Annapurna, whose experience was even greater than Tenzing’s, declined an invitation to go to the summit. His job was to supervise the efforts of the high-altitude porters and he saw no point in the struggle to reach the top. Tenzing, on the other hand, had the same driving ambition as a European climber to reach the summit. Already he had been to the top of Nanda Devi East with the French in 1951; he wanted to reach the summit of Everest in 1952. With Swiss climber Raymond Lambert, he got to within 250 metres, high upon the South-East Ridge, just 165 metres below the South Summit.
The Swiss had shown the way to the top; almost all the route was known. Their failure to finish was partly the result of the comparative lightness of their assault, in the face of the huge gulf of the unknown that they had to penetrate, through the mysteries of the Western Cwm, the Lhotse Face and the final Summit Ridge; but, most of all, it was because the oxygen sets used by Lambert and Tenzing were ineffective, feeding them insufficient oxygen to compensate for the weight of the cylinders they were carrying. The sets were so primitive that they could use them only while resting, which meant having to carry the extra load of the oxygen bottles without getting any benefit from them while actually climbing. The Swiss did not give up; they made another attempt in the autumn, after the heavy snows of the monsoon, but the savage cold and high winds of the winter overtook them and they got no higher than the South Col.
Meanwhile, the British had to sit it out, praying secretly that the Swiss would not succeed. This did at least give them more time to work on some of the specialised equipment, particularly oxygen systems which seemed a vital ingredient for success. A rather abortive expedition to Cho Oyu (8,153 metres) under Shipton’s leadership gave further altitude experience to some potential members of the next British attempt on Everest, which was now scheduled for 1953.
It was generally assumed that Shipton would lead this attempt, but he himself had some doubts about the suitability of his temperament for such a role, as he confessed in his autobiography, That Untravelled World:
‘It was clear that the Committee assumed that I would lead the expedition. I had, however, given a good deal of thought to the matter, and felt it right to voice certain possible objections. Having been to Everest five times, I undoubtedly had a great deal more experience of the mountain and of climbing at extreme altitude than anyone else; also, in the past year I had been closely connected, practically and emotionally, with the new aspect of the venture. On the other hand, long involvement with an unsolved problem can easily produce rigidity of outlook, a slow response to new ideas, and it is often the case that a man with fewer inhibitions is better equipped to tackle it than one with greater experience. I had more reason than most to take a realistic view of the big element of luck involved, and this was not conducive to bounding optimism. Was it not time, perhaps, to hand over to a younger man with a fresh outlook; Moreover, Everest had become the focus of greatly inflated publicity and of keen international competition, and there were many who regarded success in the coming attempt to be of high national importance. My well-known dislike of large expeditions and my abhorrence of a competitive element in mountaineering might well seem out of place in the present situation.
‘I asked the Committee to consider these points very carefully before deciding the question of leadership and then left them while they did so.’
The chairman, Claude Elliott, and several members of the Committee already had doubts about Shipton’s leadership, particularly in the light of his failure to push through into the Western Cwm and his seeming lack of determination on Cho Oyu, but they could not bring themselves to dispense with him altogether – the main problem being that there was no other obvious candidate. It was felt, however, that a more forceful climbing leader was needed for the final push on the mountain, together with a good organiser to co-ordinate preparations in Britain, so that Shipton could remain a figurehead for the expedition while the two most vital executive functions of leadership were hived off. It was a compromise decision with all the weaknesses that this involved.
The Committee liked the idea of a military man with a proven ability in organisation and management. Two soldiers were particularly discussed – Major Jimmy Roberts, a Gurkha officer who had climbed extensively in the Himalaya, and Colonel John Hunt, who had also served in India and had had both Alpine and Himalayan expedition experience, but was almost completely unknown in British climbing circles. The previous summer, however, Hunt had climbed in the Alps with Basil Goodfellow, who was secretary at this time of both the Alpine Club and the Himalayan Committee. Impressed by Hunt’s ability as a mountaineer, combined with his obvious drive and capability as an organiser, Goodfellow pushed Hunt’s case very strongly and it was decided that he was the ideal choice as assault leader and organiser.
On being told of the Committee’s suggestion that there should be an assault leader, Eric Shipton concurred but suggested that ‘deputy leader’ would be a better title and that Charles Evans who had been on Cho Oyu with him could best fill this role. There was no question of Evans, a busy brain surgeon, being able to take on the job of full-time organiser, however, so this left an opening for Hunt.
But Elliott and Goodfellow were determined to go much further than this and the day after the Committee meeting, without consulting Shipton, Elliott wrote to Hunt asking whether he would be available for the expedition as assault or deputy leader, and also to act as full-time organiser. A few days later Goodfellow telegrammed Hunt, inviting him to come over to England to discuss his role with Shipton. It must have been downright embarrassing for all concerned. Shipton was under the impression that he was interviewing Hunt for the job of expedition organiser, while Hunt had been given the impression that he was to be deputy leader – a role that Shipton considered was already held by Charles Evans. The meeting was a failure and Hunt returned to Germany where he was serving at the time. Charles Wylie, another army officer, was made full-time organiser and set up an office in the Royal Geographical Society building.
But Goodfellow, convinced that Hunt was essential to the success of the expedition, was not prepared to let the matter drop. At the next Committee meeting on 11 September, the question of deputy leadership was at the top of the agenda. Shipton was asked to leave the room – an extraordinary slight to the leader of the expedition - while the Committee discussed it. When Shipton was asked back in, he was told that the Committee had decided to make John Hunt not deputy leader but co-leader, something that they must have realised would have been unacceptable to Shipton, who felt he had no choice but to resign.
Inevitably, there was uproar throughout the world of mountaineering and within the team. Eric Shipton was by far the best-known and most popular mountaineer in Britain at that time. Nobody had ever heard of John Hunt. Bourdillon, loyal as always, said he was going to withdraw from the expedition and it was Shipton who persuaded him to stay on. Evans was very distressed though, ironically, he received the title deputy leader. Hillary, first hearing about it in a newspaper report, was indignant, saying that Everest just wouldn’t be the same without Shipton, but he never thought of withdrawing from the expedition.
Were the Committee right? Would Everest have been climbed under Shipton’s leadership? Certainly several members of his team thought so, arguing that Charles Evans and Charles Wylie would have ensured that the organisation was sound and that the determination of the climbers out in front, men like Hillary and Lowe, could have carried the expedition with its own momentum, even if Shipton had left it to look after itself. I experienced something like this when I went to Nuptse, the third peak of Everest; the leader of the expedition believed in letting the climbers out in front make their own decisions, without actually appointing anyone in authority. We had no radios, but left each other little notes at the various camps with the plans that each member had made. We climbed the mountain in a storm of acrimony, which might have had a certain dynamic force of its own. But in the case of Everest, I suspect the problem was so huge and complex, the need for careful co-ordination so great, that it required a firm and positive overall leadership. This can only come from one person who has this responsibility vested in him, is prepared to use it, and at the same time has the acceptance and respect of his fellow team members. From this point of view, the expedition almost certainly had a higher chance of success under John Hunt’s leadership than it would have done under Shipton who, apart from anything else, never seemed totally committed to the enterprise or happy directing a single-minded thrust up a mountain. It was very unfortunate, however, that the decision was made in such a messy way.
Shipton was cruelly hurt by this rejection. It is one thing to be allowed to stand down from an expedition, quite another to be manoeuvred into an impossible position. It triggered off a series of personal crises that had a traumatic effect over the next five years and it was only in 1957, through an invitation by a group of university students to lead their expedition to the Karakoram, that he returned to the mountains. In his fifties he then had a renaissance, which he described as the happiest years of his life, exploring the wild, unmapped glaciers and mountains of Patagonia in the southern tip of South America. This was the style of mountaineering in which he excelled and in which he could find complete commitment and happiness.
In the meantime, John Hunt had been given the opportunity of his life. Shipton and Hunt, who were so very different in personality, had very similar backgrounds. Both were born in India – Shipton in Ceylon in 1907, the son of a tea planter, Hunt in Simla in 1910, the son of a regular army officer. Both lost their fathers at around the age of four, both were sent to prep schools in England, but here the similarity ended. Shipton was a slow learner, perhaps suffered from dyslexia, for he was a very late reader. As a result, he failed the common entrance examination to public school, and after a sketchy schooling took up tea planting in Kenya; for him this led naturally to a life of individual adventure.
The young Hunt, on the other hand, was brought up from a very early age to the idea of a life of serious and dedicated public service. He went to Marlborough, then followed family tradition by going to Sandhurst, where he distinguished himself, becoming a senior under-officer and winning both the Sword of Honour and the Gold Medal for Top Academic Attainment. He was commissioned into the fashionable Rifle Brigade and posted to India. But here he ceased to be the stereotyped young subaltern; he was not happy in the claustrophobic pre-war army officer’s life of polo, cocktail parties and mess gossip. He preferred playing football with his soldiers, and already had a sense of social responsibility combined with a strong Christian belief that made him much more progressive in his political and social attitudes than the average army officer. Tiring of the fairly aimless routine of garrison life, he applied for a temporary transfer to the Indian Police to work in intelligence and counter-terrorism. Already he was addicted to mountaineering, having had several Alpine sessions before going out to India. With the Himalaya on his doorstep, he took every opportunity to escape to the mountains with adventurous ski tours in Kashmir and more ambitious climbs on Saltoro Kangri and in the Kangchenjunga region. Hunt was considered for the 1936 Everest expedition but, ironically, failed the medical test because of a slight flutter in his heartbeat. He saw active service during the war, commanding a battalion in Italy, where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, and then getting command of a brigade in Greece at the end of the war. He went to Staff College and served on Field Marshal Montgomery’s staff at the end of the 1940s, at Fontainebleau, getting to know French climbers and being invited to join the Groupe de Haute Montagne. He married Joy, who was a Wimbledon tennis player, in 1935. Theirs was a very close relationship and between an exacting career and raising a family, they did much of their mountain adventuring together.
Hunt certainly looked the part of the professional soldier, but he was no martinet. He plunged into the job of organising the expedition, but in doing so fully involved everyone around him, overcoming any initial resentment. One commentator, Ingrid Cranfield, summed up what has become a popular interpretation of Hunt’s approach, writing: ‘To Hunt an “assault” merely meant a concerted, military-style operation; whereas to Shipton “assault” sounded more like a criminal offence.’ In fact, this was hardly fair, for Hunt’s approach to climbing was essentially romantic, with an almost spiritual undertone. Wilfrid Noyce remembered Hunt commenting how mountains made him want to pray. Hunt undoubtedly saw Everest as a romantic, perhaps even spiritual, challenge, but used his military training to approach a task that needed careful planning. He could see that the basic principles of ensuring success on a mountain are very similar to those of success in war, and one finds oneself using similar terminology.
Dr Griffith Pugh, the physiologist who had accompanied the Cho Oyu expedition, played a very important part in the preparations. The way the human body adapted to altitude was still a mystery and it was largely Griff Pugh’s work that determined the need for acclimatisation to altitude and, perhaps even more important, the need to drink a lot to avoid dehydration. The diet of the expedition was carefully worked out and the equipment, with specially designed high-altitude boots, tentage and clothing, was better than anything that had been used before.
There were plenty of strong incentives demanding success; the fact that the French had permission for 1954, the Swiss for 1955, so that if the British failed this time they were most unlikely to have another chance; the fact that it was the year of the Queen’s Coronation; the amount of money and effort involved; the controversy over the change in leadership; but, most important of all, Hunt – and for that matter most of his team – wanted success for its own sake. If you set out on a climb, there is a tremendous drive to succeed in what you are attempting. On Everest, certainly in 1953 when six serious attempts had failed (five on the north side and one on the south), the chances of success seemed slim, however large and well equipped the expedition might be.
Hunt settled on a slightly larger team than perhaps Shipton would have taken, making it up to a total of twelve climbers, plus thirty-six high-altitude porters. Evans, Bourdillon, Gregory, Hillary and Lowe, had been in the Cho Oyu party, Michael Ward, had been on the 1951 Reconnaissance as a doctor, and George Band, Wilfrid Noyce, Charles Wylie and Mike Westmacott were newcomers. Even the Cho Oyu men were thin on real high-altitude experience; Charles Evans had reached 7,300 metres on Annapurna IV in 1950, while Hillary and Lowe had collected a fine crop of peaks around 6,400 metres and had been to about 6,850 metres on both Mukut Parbat and Cho Oyu, but they had not climbed any really high mountains. In this respect John Hunt was the most experienced, for he had been to 7470 metres on Saltoro Kangri and had made a bold solo ascent of the South-West Summit of Nepal Peak (7,107 metres) in East Nepal. It was Tenzing Norkay, however, who had more high-altitude experience and knew Everest better than any of the other members of the party and, because of this, he was made a full team member as well as being sirdar of the porters.
The British part of the expedition came from traditional Oxbridge or military backgrounds, the only exception being Alf Gregory, a northerner who ran a travel agency in Blackpool. The selection, however, was a natural one, for the climbing explosion that hit Britain in the early 1950s, spearheaded by the tough Mancunians of the Rock and Ice Climbing Club, had only just got under way. In completing the selection of the team, Hunt had looked for compatibility as much as a record for hard climbing. This certainly worked out, for the team functioned well together under Hunt’s firm, but tactful direction.
Preparations were complicated by the fact that the Swiss were having their second try for the mountain that autumn, which meant that Hunt and his team could not let go at full bore until the end of November, when the Swiss finally admitted defeat. The British had just three months to put the expedition together; much of the equipment had to be specially designed and manufactured and, although some work had already been started, they had not been able to place any firm orders until they knew the outcome of the Swiss attempt. It is unlikely that they would have been able to raise the financial support for a second ascent of the mountain.
All the gear and food was ready to leave by sea on 12 February 1953. The team reached Thyangboche, the Buddhist monastery a few kilometres south of the Everest massif, on 27 March. This was early in the season, but Hunt was determined to allow an acclimatisation period before the start of the serious climbing. This was a concept fashionable in pre-war expeditions and in those of the early 1950s, though later expeditions tended to concentrate all their efforts on the climb itself, acclimatising by working on the lower slopes of the mountain.
The story of the Everest expedition, like that of all siege-type expeditions, is a complex yet stereotyped one, of establishment of camps and different parties moving up and down the mountain, as the route is slowly pushed towards the summit. The first barrier is the now famous Khumbu Icefall; the route then relents through the Western Cwm; it is a long walk, skirting crevasses which tend to force the climber into the sides, and the consequent threat of avalanche from the steep, crenellated walls of Nuptse. At the head of the Cwm is the Lhotse Glacier, a giant series of steps, steep ice walls alternating with broad platforms, leading up towards the summit rocks of Lhotse. From near the top of the glacier, a long traverse across snow slopes leads to the South Col of Everest, the springboard for a summit bid up the South-East Ridge, soaring for 860 metres past the South Summit, which, deceptively, looks like the top from the South Col, and then beyond it to the summit itself.
Throughout, John Hunt pressed himself to the limit, determined to be seen to be working as hard, if not harder, than anyone else on the expedition, either in carrying a load while escorting porters, making a reconnaissance in the Western Cwm or on the Lhotse Face, as well as coping with the detailed planning and day-to-day administration needed for the expedition. On several occasions he pushed himself too hard, as he struggled, grey-faced, to complete the day’s task. There was a strong competitive element in his make-up, noticed by Hillary on the approach march and recorded in his autobiography:
‘I learned to respect John even if I found it difficult to understand him. He drove himself with incredible determination and I always felt he was out to prove himself the physical equal of any member – even though most of us were a good deal younger than himself. I can remember on the third day’s march pounding up the long steep hill from Dologhat and catching up with John and the way he shot ahead, absolutely determined not to be passed – the sort of challenge I could not then resist. I surged past with a burst of speed and was astonished to see John’s face, white and drawn, as he threw every bit of strength into the effort. There was an impression of desperation because he wasn’t quite fast enough. What was he trying to prove, I wondered? He was the leader and cracked the whip - surely that was enough? I now know that sometimes it isn’t enough - that we can be reluctant to accept that our physical powers have their limits or are declining, even though our best executive years may still be ahead of us.’
Mike Ward had an uncomfortable feeling in his presence, noting, ‘My first impression of John was of some disturbing quality that I sensed but could not define. Later, I understood this to be the intense emotional background to his character, by no means obvious, and yet an undercurrent came through.’ George Lowe commented, ‘He greeted me most warmly and said how much he was depending on me – his assault on personal susceptibilities was impossible to resist.’
This was an experience that everyone I have talked to remembered. At the same time, however, both through his own personality and also from his position as leader, he kept a certain distance from his fellow members and had an air of authority, very similar to that Thor Heyerdahl inspired in his crew on Kon-Tiki. Even when members of the team disagreed with him they always ended up complying with his wishes.
From the very start Hunt had thought Hillary and Tenzing potentially his strongest pair, though they had never met before the expedition and climbed together for the first time in the lower part of the Western Cwm. Hillary was immediately impressed by Tenzing’s energy, competence, enthusiasm and, above all, his determination. He wrote later:
‘If you accept the modern philosophy that there must be a ruthless and selfish motivation to succeed in sport, then it could be justly claimed that Tenzing and I were the closest approximation we had on our expedition to the climbing prima donnas of today. We wanted for the expedition to succeed – and nobody worked any harder to ensure that it did – but in both our minds success was always equated with us being somewhere around the summit when it happened.’
Another strong pairing was that of Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon. Although Bourdillon was younger than Evans, and had climbed at a much higher standard in the Alps, they had much in common. Both had a scientific background and Evans, though initially sceptical, became deeply involved in Bourdillon’s brainchild, the closed-circuit oxygen system, which his father had specially developed for the 1953 expedition in the hope of avoiding the wastage of the conventional open-circuit set. In theory it should have been the best system, but in practice it proved to be less reliable than the open-circuit system and the other members of the team were not impressed. Privately, Hunt felt the same way, but gave his support to the closed-circuit trials all the same. Bourdillon and Evans had been the two members of the team closest to Eric Shipton, Bourdillon having actually resigned from the expedition, and only brought back in after a great deal of persuasion. Hunt had been very touched on the walk in, when Bourdillon had told him how happy the expedition seemed to be. He wanted to keep it that way.
Hillary, down to earth and practical, preferred the look of the open-circuit oxygen system and felt that too much time was being expended in trying to prove the closed-circuit equipment. At 6.30 a.m. on 2 May, Hillary and Tenzing set out from Base Camp, using the open-circuit set, carrying a load that totalled eighteen kilograms. They reached Camp 4, the Advanced Base in the Western Cwm, 1,525 metres of climbing with about six kilometres in lateral distance, breaking trail most of the way through soft snow. It was as much an affirmation of their fitness and suitability for the summit as a vindication of the open-circuit system. Hunt was already thinking of them as his main summit hope, and this confirmed his choice.
By modern standards, Hunt’s approach to the assault was slow if methodical, not so much a blitzkrieg as a steady siege. But there was a great deal more that was unknown in 1953 than there is today. Only one mountain of over 8,000 metres had been climbed and Hunt had no desire to repeat the desperate, ill-supported summit bid, followed by the near-disastrous retreat from Annapurna experienced by Herzog’s expedition, nor the failure, through an inadequate oxygen system and cumulative exhaustion, of the Swiss. It was believed climbers deteriorated physically, even while resting, at heights of over 6,400 metres, and it was not known how long anyone could survive and function effectively above this height. Hunt, therefore, was determined to nurse his team, particularly the climbers he was considering for the summit.
It was on 7 May, with most of the team down at Base Camp, that he laid before them his final plan of assault. He felt that he had only the resources, both in materials and manpower, to mount one strong attempt on the summit. If this failed they would all have to come back down, rest and think again. But his thinking for the summit bid was consistent with his policy up to that point; it was one of reconnaissance, build-up of supplies and then the thrust forward. To do this, he first had to reach the South Col and he gave this job to George Lowe who, with Hillary, probably had the greatest all-round snow and ice experience of the expedition. With him were to be George Band and Mike Westmacott, two of the young newcomers to the Himalaya, and a group of Sherpas. Once the route was made to the South Col, Hunt planned a big carry to the Col, supervised by Noyce and Wylie, after which Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon would move into position and make a bid for the South Summit, using the closed-circuit sets. Since, in theory, these sets were more effective and had greater endurance than open-circuit sets, they should be able at least to reach the South Summit from the South Col, a height of around 780 metres, and it was just conceivable that they could reach the top. In this way Hunt could satisfy the two exponents of the closed-circuit system as well as making what he felt was a vital reconnaissance, opening the way for the main summit bid. In this respect one must remember just how huge a barrier that last 250 metres on Everest appeared to be in 1953. Just one day behind them would be Hillary and Tenzing, with a strong support party consisting of Hunt, Gregory and two Sherpas. They would establish a camp as high as possible above the South Col on the South-East Ridge, and then Hillary and Tenzing, using open-circuit sets, would make their bid for the summit – hoping to benefit from the first party’s tracks and with that indefinable barrier of the unknown pushed still higher up the mountain.
Subsequently Hunt modified his plan so that he, with two Sherpas, would move up with Evans and Bourdillon to give them direct support just in case anything went wrong and, at the same time, to make a dump for the high camp. Hunt hoped to stay up on the South Col throughout the period of the summit attempts, since this was obviously the place of decision and the only place from which he could effectively influence events.
It must have been a tense moment for the entire team when they assembled for the meeting that was to give them their roles in the final phase of the expedition. Up to this point, Hunt had used a low-key approach to leadership, consulting with people as far as possible, often sowing the germ of an idea in others’ heads so that they could almost believe that it was their own; but now he had to lay down a series of roles for the team, knowing all too well that some of its members would be bitterly disappointed.
Ward came out very strongly against Hunt’s plan on two counts. He could not understand the logic of making an initial bid from the South Col, when only a slightly greater porter effort would be needed to establish a high camp for Evans and Bourdillon’s attempt which, of course, could also be used by Hillary and Tenzing. He also challenged Hunt’s plan to take charge of the carry to the top camp himself on the grounds that he was not physically fit for it – a heavy charge, coming from the expedition medical officer. But John Hunt weathered both attacks, which were delivered with great vehemence, and stuck to his guns.
I myself have always wondered at the thinking behind John Hunt’s decision to allow Bourdillon and Evans to make their attempt from the South Col which meant, in effect, that there would be only one strong attempt on the summit itself. Had Bourdillon and Evans been granted that top camp, in all probability they would have been the first men on top of Everest. It is easy, however, to be wise after the event. Hunt was probably the only member of the team fully aware of just how thin was the ferrying capability of his Sherpas, particularly once they were above the South Col. Had Hillary and Tenzing failed in their summit bid, and the British team not climbed Everest in 1953, then no doubt the post-mortems would have been long and furious – but no one is too interested in a post-mortem after success.
Whatever reservations some members of the team might have had, they all settled into their roles and worked themselves to the limit in the next three weeks. But things began going wrong almost from the start. It needs ruthless determination to keep the momentum of a climb under way. At altitude time seems to be slowed up by the very lethargy of the climber himself and the chores that have to be done. Struggling with a recalcitrant Primus, washing up dirty dishes in cold snow water and fighting with frozen crampon straps can eat into a day and somehow dominate it so that the real aim of the climber, in this case to reach the South Col, becomes obscured. This is what happened now.
At Camp 6 on the night of 15 May, Lowe took a sleeping tablet for the first time. It had a disastrous effect. The next morning he just couldn’t wake up. Noyce pleaded with him, cursed him, pummelled him, but it was not until 10.30 that Lowe staggered out of the tent and they were able to start up the tracks he had made the previous day. They didn’t get far; he was falling asleep while he walked; they had no choice but to return, a precious day wasted. On 17 May, fully recovered and now well rested, Lowe went like a rocket and at last they established their seventh camp, about halfway up the Lhotse Face at a height of 7,315 metres. They still had 670 metres to go to the South Col. Noyce now dropped back, for he was going to be responsible for supervising the first big carry up to the South Col. Mike Ward went up to join Lowe that day, but he had a struggle just reaching the camp. Next day an icy wind blasted across the slope; Ward felt the cold bite through him. He went more and more slowly before being forced to turn back after less than a hundred metres’ progress. They stayed in the tent on the 19th and barely reached their previous high point on the 20th. The forward drive of the expedition seemed to have come to a grinding halt.
Hunt now made a bold decision, pressured no doubt by desperation. Even though they were still far short of the South Col, he resolved to send Wilfrid Noyce up to Camp 7 with the Sherpa carrying party to try to push the route out and make the carry at the same time. In Hillary’s view, Wilf Noyce was the best and most determined mountaineer of all the British contingent. A school master and a poet, he had a diffident manner, but once on the mountain he was a very different person, with a single-minded drive and the immense determination of a man who had been one of Britain’s most outstanding young rock climbers before the war.
Hunt, still desperately worried, uncharacteristically snapped at Lowe when he came back down after his marathon ten days out in front on the Lhotse Face. In Mike Ward’s words ‘he was excessively rude’ – an outburst caused by strain and very quickly rectified. Hunt now realised, though, that he had to reinforce the push for the South Col, but who could he send without weakening his summit assault? That night he resolved to send two more climbers up to Camp 7 the following day.
On the morning of the 21st things looked bad at the top camp. The Sherpas with Noyce had eaten something that disagreed with them and were all sick. There seemed little chance of getting up to the South Col, particularly on a route that was still unclimbed. Noyce, therefore, decided to set out with Anullu, a powerfully built young Sherpa who chain-smoked and enjoyed his chang, the local beer, brewed from fermented rice, maize or barley.
Back at Advanced Base, Hunt watched the slow progress of the two tiny dots and decided that Hillary and Tenzing would have to go up to the front and lend a hand. Hillary had come to the same conclusion already. Tenzing, more than anyone, would be able to encourage the Sherpas and Hillary had a huge and vested interest in getting the camp on the South Col established. In addition, he was confident that he had the fitness to make this lightning push up to the Col, come back down, rest a day or so, and then make his summit bid. So Hillary and Tenzing set out from Advanced Base that afternoon and surged straight through to Camp 7.
Meanwhile, Wilf Noyce and Anullu had passed the high point reached by Lowe and Ward and were now working their way across the steep snow slope that swept down in a single span to the floor of the Western Cwm 900 metres below. They reached a crevasse that stretched its barrier right across the slope, and cast in either direction to find a snow bridge; but there was none:
‘I looked at Anullu, and Anullu, behind his mask, looked back at me. He was pointing. Where he pointed, the crevasse, some eight feet wide had narrowed to perhaps three. The cause of narrowing was the two lips, which had pushed forward as if to kiss over the bottle green depths below. The lips were composed, apparently, of unsupported snow, and seemed to suspend themselves above this “pleasure-dome of ice” into whose cool chasms, widening to utter blackness, it would at other times have been a delight to peer. I walked right once more, then left. Nothing. I signed to Anullu that he should drive his axe well in and be ready for me. Then I advanced to the first unsupported ledge. I stood upon this first ledge and prodded. Anullu would have held me, had one ledge given way, but he could not have pulled me up. As the walls of the crevasse were undercut to widen the gap, I would have been held dangling and could not have helped myself out. It would be silly to face such a problem in the Alps without a party of three. But I cannot remember more than a passing qualm. Altitude, even through oxygen, dulled fears as well as hopes. One thing at a time. Everest must be climbed. Therefore this step must be passed. I prodded my ice axe across at the other ledge, hut I could not quite reach deep enough to tell. I took the quick stride and jump, trying not to look down, plunged the axe hard in and gasped. The lip was firm. This time the Lhotse Face really was climbed.’
Slowly, they plodded on towards the wide gully that led to the crest of the Geneva Spur, which in turn would lead them easily to the South Col:
‘Strange, how breathless I could feel, even on four litres a minute. Anticipation was breathless too as the crest drew near, backed by the shadow of Everest’s last pyramid, now a floating right-handed curve from which snow mist blew. I was leading again, and hacked the last steps on to the crest. Still no view, and no easy traverse; we must go on up to the widening top, first boulders, up which we stumbled easily, then more snow, the broad forehead of the Geneva Spur, and then suddenly nothing was immediately above us any more. We were on a summit, overlooked in this whole scene only by Lhotse and Everest. And this was the scene long dreamed, long hoped.
‘To the right and above, the crenellations of Lhotse cut a blue sky fringed with snow cloudlets. To the left, snow mist still held Everest mysteriously. But the eye wandered hungry and fascinated over the plateau between; a space of boulders and bare ice perhaps 400 yards square, absurdly solid and comfortable at first glance in contrast with the sweeping ridges around, or the blank mist that masked the Tibetan hills beyond. But across it a noisy little wind moaned its warning that the South Col, goal of so many days’ ambition, was not comfortable at all. And in among the glinting ice and dirty grey boulders there lay some yellow tatters – all that remained of the Swiss expeditions of last year.’
Wilf Noyce had achieved his own personal summit; he knew that for him the expedition was probably over. He had fulfilled his role in John Hunt’s master plan, had established one vital stepping stone for others to achieve the final goal, but that goal was denied him, as it is to the vast majority of members of a large expedition. Some are better than others at suppressing ambition and envy; in his book, South Col, Wilf Noyce only allowed: ‘Yet when I looked up and saw John’s trio setting out for the Face, a demon of suppressed envy pricked me, now that my job was done.’
On 22 May, Ed Hillary and Tenzing helped cajole and encourage Charles Wylie’s carrying party to the South Col; Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon, with John Hunt in support, were on their way up to the Lhotse Face to put in the first tentative assault or reconnaissance of the South Summit, though I am quite sure that as Bourdillon and Evans plodded up the long slopes, enclosed in the claustrophobic embrace of their chosen oxygen sets, they were dreaming and hoping for the summit. In theory, the closed-circuit system should give them the speed and the endurance to get them to the top, but what if it failed or ran out near the summit? They had talked endlessly about this eventuality. The sudden withdrawal of a flow of almost pure oxygen could have disastrous effects. Would it be like running out of oxygen in a high-flying aircraft? Could they adjust to the complete loss of oxygen in time to get back down the mountain? There was no way of knowing for certain.
Until now, Wilf Noyce, George Lowe and all the others had been pursuing a series of limited adventures, limited not so much by their own strength, determination and acceptance of risk, as by the roles imposed upon them by the leader of the expedition. Bourdillon, however, had been given the opportunity of seeking out adventure in its fullest sense, for not only had he an outside chance of getting to the top, but also he was putting on trial his own oxygen system.
It is often argued that the use of artificial aids reduces the level of adventure; it certainly does with the indiscriminate use of expansion bolts, drilled and hammered into a rock wall to aid an ascent, for this dramatically reduces the level of uncertainty experienced by the climbers. In this respect, perhaps, had the closed-circuit oxygen system been perfect in every respect, lightweight and reliable, reducing Everest’s summit to the height of Snowdon or Scafell, the feeling of adventure would have been lessened, though no doubt the satisfaction to Bourdillon the scientist would have been enormous. As it was, the system was by no means perfect. With fully charged bottles and spare soda lime canisters (which absorbed the carbon dioxide), it weighed about twenty-three kilograms; it was temperamental in the extreme and uncomfortable to use. Charles Evans went along with Bourdillon out of friendship, coupled with his own scientific interest in the outcome of the experiment. It was a loyalty and enthusiasm that was to be severely tried.
Initially, their route went up a snow gully on the side of the ridge. They reached the crest, at a height of around 8,290 metres, just after nine o’clock, having taken only an hour and a half to climb 400 metres. At that rate they had a good chance of not only reaching the South Summit, but getting to the top; but the going now became much more difficult. Fresh snow covered the rocks of the ridge; the clouds rolled in and soon it began to snow; their pace slowed and it took two hours to cover the next 245 metres. They had now reached the high point achieved by Lambert and Tenzing the previous year and were confronted by a difficult decision. The soda lime canisters had a life of around three and a half hours; they were slightly awkward to change and there was always a risk of valves freezing up immediately after the change. On the other hand, they could probably get another half hour or so out of the canisters that were in place – something that could make a big difference later on. They had a muffled conversation through the masks clamped around their faces. They decided to make the change.
Once again, they set out, now on new ground. The cloud swirled around them, the angle steepened and the snow was unstable, a fragile crust overlying loose deep snow beneath. There was a serious risk of avalanche. Even more serious, Evans’ set now developed a fault which caused laboured, rapid breathing. Slowly, they forced their way upwards and, at last, reached the crest of the South Summit. The cloud was milling around them, clinging to the eastern side of the ridge like a great banner, but the crest of the ridge was clear.
Now higher than any man had ever been before, for the first time they were able to examine the final ridge to the summit of Everest. It did not look encouraging. Looking at it head-on made it appear much steeper and more difficult than it actually was; it also looked very much longer, a phenomenon noticed by Doug Scott when he arrived just below the South Summit in 1975. It was one o’clock in the afternoon; they had already been going for five and a half hours; they were tired and were now well into their second canister. To go on or not? The summit was within their grasp; they could almost certainly reach it, but could they get back: They would undoubtedly run out of oxygen, might well be benighted. Bourdillon was prepared to risk all; he had that kind of temperament, had made a whole series of very bold and committing climbs in the Alps. Evans, however, whom John Hunt had put in charge of the pair and who was that little bit older, resolved that the risk was too great. They had a furious argument, muted no doubt by their oxygen masks, but Evans stuck to his point and Bourdillon, reluctantly, agreed to retreat. They only just got back, falling in their exhaustion on several occasions and tumbling, almost out of control, down the final gully leading back to the South Col, only saved by Bourdillon taking braking action with the pick of his axe. Had they pushed on to the summit, it seems most unlikely that they would have managed to get back alive.
Back on the South Col, there had been a moment when the onlookers, who now included Hillary and Tenzing, thought that Bourdillon and Evans were going to be successful. It was something that Hillary and Tenzing must have watched with mixed emotions. Whatever he felt, Hillary was able to muster a show of Anglo-Saxon team spirit. Tenzing, however, was both visibly and vocally agitated as he saw his chances of being the first man on top of the world starting to vanish.
Bourdillon and Evans, lying exhausted in their tents, had done a magnificent job; had they started from a higher camp they would almost certainly have reached the summit of Everest. As it was, they had opened the way for Hillary and Tenzing, though the story they brought back, understandably, was not encouraging.
John Hunt, who was also exhausted after his carry, felt a deep sense of satisfaction. His oxygen set had given trouble and, as a result, he had received a flow rate of only two litres per minute – half of what he really needed to make up for the weight of the oxygen cylinders and then to give him real help. Even so, he had struggled on to a height of around 8,336 metres before dumping his load. For the leader of an expedition it is very important psychologically to make this carry to the top camp; in doing so he can feel that everything possible has been done to make the ascent viable and in some measure, I suspect, have a stronger sense of vicarious involvement in the final summit bid. The expedition as a whole becomes an extension of the leader’s personality and ego. Because of this, it is not a huge sacrifice to forego the summit bid, for the success of the expedition overall is very much his handiwork, bringing a satisfaction that is as much intellectual as purely egotistical. On the other hand, the other expedition members inevitably experience frustration on many occasions because they are being held back, given humdrum tasks or denied the chance of going to the summit. On a large expedition, some can lose the sense of personal adventure they would have experienced on a smaller venture.
Not so the irrepressible George Lowe who, as Hunt returned to the Western Cwm, had bobbed back up to the South Col, after the very minimum of rest from his herculean efforts on the Lhotse Face. He had no thought and little chance of making a summit bid himself; he just wanted to get as high up the mountain as he could, and was all too happy to do this in a support role.
After a day of storm the 28th dawned fine, though bitterly cold at –25 °C, and still very windy; but they had no choice, they had to start the final push for the summit. Of their two Sherpas only Ang Nyma, another hard-drinking, chain-smoking young man, was fit, so Gregory, Lowe and Ang Nyma had to take on heavy loads, but the heaviest of all were those carried by Hillary and Tenzing, who each took around twenty-three kilograms. They reached the place where John Hunt and Da Namgyl had dumped their loads, but decided that this was too low and therefore picked up everything, sharing it out among themselves. Hillary was carrying the heaviest load – more than twenty-seven kilograms.
Slowly, they clambered on up the ridge to a height of around 8,494 metres, before finally stopping. Hillary and Tenzing started digging out a platform for their tent, while the others dropped back down towards the South Col. Both Hillary and Tenzing were in superb condition, finding they could work at the platform and put up the tent without using oxygen. That evening they dined well off endless cups of hot, sweet lemon water, soup and coffee, which washed down sardines on biscuits, a tin of apricots, biscuits and jam.
They woke at 4 a.m. on the morning of 29 May. It was a brilliant, clear dawn and, even more important, the wind had almost vanished. Tenzing was able to point out the Thyangboche Monastery, 5,180 metres lower and twenty kilometres away. It took them two and a half hours to get ready for their bid for the summit, melting snow for a drink, struggling with frozen boots and fiddling with the oxygen sets.
At 6.30 they set out. In the event, they got little benefit from the previous party’s tracks. They did not like the look of the route taken and therefore waded up through steep, insubstantial snow that felt as it if could slip away with them any minute. It was only nine in the morning when they reached the South Summit, and the view was magnificent. Makalu in the foreground, Kangchenjunga behind, were almost dwarfed from their airy viewpoint; little puffballs of cloud clung to the valleys, but above them the sky was that intense blue of high altitude, while to the east it was traced with no more than light streamers of high cloud. Hillary looked with some foreboding at the final ridge, about which Evans and Bourdillon had made such a gloomy forecast.
‘At first glance it was an exceedingly impressive and indeed frightening sight. In the narrow crest of this ridge, the basic rock of the mountain had a thin capping of snow and ice - ice that reached out over the East Face in enormous cornices, overhanging and treacherous, and only waiting for the careless foot of the mountaineer to break off and crash 10,000 feet to the Kangshung Glacier. And from the cornices the snow dropped steeply to the left to merge with the enormous rock bluffs which towered 8,000 feet above the Western Cwm. It was impressive all right! But as I looked my fears started to lift a little. Surely I could see a route there? For this snow slope on the left, although very steep and exposed, was practically continuous for the first half of the ridge, although in places the great cornices reached hungrily across. If we could make a route along that snow slope, we could go quite a distance at least.’
They had a short rest and Hillary changed both his and Tenzing’s oxygen bottles for full ones. Then they set out, Hillary out in front, cutting big steps for their ungainly, cramponned high-altitude boots, down a slope of good firm snow leading to the col between the Main and South Summits. Tenzing kept him on a tight rope, and then followed down. From the col they followed the heavily corniced ridge, moving carefully, one at a time. Hillary noticed that Tenzing had slowed down badly and was panting hard; he checked Tenzing’s oxygen mask and saw that one of the valves was iced up so that he was getting hardly any oxygen. Quickly, he cleared it and they carried on, cutting steps, edging their way round ledges, ever conscious of the dizzy drop down into the Western Cwm, 2,438 metres below.
The most serious barrier was a vertical rock step in the ridge. At first glance it looked smooth and unclimbable, but then Hillary noticed a gap between the cornice that was peeling away from the rock on the right of the ridge and the wall of the rock itself.
‘In front of me was the rock wall, vertical, but with a few promising holds. Behind me was the ice wall of the cornice, glittering and hard but cracked here and there. I took a hold on the rock in front and then jammed one of my crampons hard into the ice behind. Leaning back with my oxygen set on the ice, I slowly levered myself upwards. Searching feverishly with my spare boot, I found a tiny ledge on the rock and took some of the weight off with my other leg. Leaning back on the cornice, I fought to regain my breath. Constantly at the back of my mind was the fear that the cornice might break off, and my nerves were taut with suspense. But slowly, I forced my way up - wriggling and jamming and using every little hold. In one place I managed to force my ice axe into a crack in the ice, and this gave me the necessary purchase to get over a holdless stretch. And then I found a solid foothold in a hollow in the ice, and next moment I was reaching over the top of the rock and pulling myself to safety. The rope came tight – its forty feet had been barely enough.’
Tenzing then followed.
‘As I heaved hard on the rope Tenzing wriggled his way up the crack and finally collapsed exhausted at the top like a giant fish when it has just been hauled from the sea after a terrible struggle.
‘I checked both our oxygen sets and roughly calculated our flow rates. Everything seemed to be going well. Probably owing to the strain imposed on him by the trouble with his oxygen set, Tenzing had been moving rather slowly but he was climbing safely and this was the major consideration. His only comment on my enquiring of his condition was to smile and wave along the ridge.’
They had now overcome the last real barrier and at last, at 11.30 in the morning, Hillary, with Tenzing just behind him, reached the highest point on earth. Suddenly everything dropped away around them. They could gaze down the North Ridge of Everest, across the endless and brown hills of Tibet, across to Kangchenjunga in the east and the serried peaks of the Himalaya to the west. They shook hands, embraced, flew their flags in those few moments of untrammelled delight, of complete unity in what they had achieved. Then they started the long and hazardous way down.
The first ascent of Everest caught the imagination of the entire world to a degree as great, if not greater than, any other venture before or since. Only the arrival of the first man on the moon, a victory of supreme technology, perhaps surpassed man’s reaching the highest point on earth. But the very scale of the interest and adulation brought its accompanying problems the moment the expedition reached the Kathmandu valley. Nepali nationalists wanted to adopt Tenzing as a standard-bearer for their own cause; the adulating crowds pounced upon him, shouting, ‘Tenzing zindabad, long live Tenzing!’ They ignored Hillary and waved placards which depicted Tenzing arriving at the summit of Everest hauling behind him a fat and helpless white man. Hunt and Hillary were awarded knighthoods, Tenzing the George Medal. The fact that, as an Indian or Nepali citizen, he was not allowed to accept a foreign title was ignored and, inevitably, the Indian and Nepali press tried to exploit what they described as a racist slight to Tenzing.
Hillary, perhaps extra sensitive to the implications that he was hauled to the summit by Tenzing, wrote a frank description of what he thought happened on the day of the summit bid. Tenzing was affronted by the suggestion, which I suspect was true, that Hillary took the initiative on the push to the summit, particularly from the South Summit onwards. In his autobiography, Man of Everest, compiled by the American novelist, James Ramsay Ullman, Tenzing stated:
‘I must be honest and say that I do not feel his account, as told in The Ascent of Everest, is wholly accurate. For one thing he has written that this gap up the rock wall was about forty feet high, but in my judgement it was little more than fifteen. Also, he gives the impression that it was only he who really climbed it on his own, and that he then practically pulled me, so that I “finally collapsed exhausted at the top, like a giant fish when it has just been hauled from the sea after a terrible struggle”. Since then I have heard plenty about that “fish” and I admit I do not like it. For it is the plain truth that no one pulled or hauled me up the gap, I climbed it myself, just as Hillary had done; and if he was protecting me with the rope while I was doing it, this was no more than I had done for him.’
In their own ways both accounts are probably true, but it is noticeable that Hillary toned down his account of how Tenzing climbed the step, both in his own personal story of the expedition, High Adventure, and in his autobiography, Nothing Venture, Nothing Win.
The other members of the expedition, who had helped Hillary and Tenzing reach the top, got only a fraction of the acclaim. The public needs easily identifiable heroes and is little interested in whole teams. The team itself, however, has held together, meeting regularly for reunions and, in various combinations, joining each other for other climbs or expeditions. Perhaps this is the ultimate tribute to the leadership of John Hunt.
Charles Evans avoided the fanfares of the return journey, going off trekking to the south of Everest. Two years later he led a small, low-key expedition to Kangchenjunga, third highest mountain of the world, and George Band, the youngest of the Everest team, who had had difficulty in acclimatising, reached the summit with Joe Brown, the Manchester plumber who was the representative of a new driving force in British climbing. Wilf Noyce, too, went on to climb other mountains in the Himalaya, until he was killed in the Pamirs in 1962 with the brilliant young Scottish climber, Robin Smith. George Lowe made the Antarctic crossing with Vivian Fuchs, meeting Ed Hillary who led the New Zealand contingent coming in the opposite direction, and ended up marrying one of John Hunt’s daughters.
John Hunt’s career was undoubtedly helped, as in fact was that of most of the others, by his experience on the Everest expedition, but he has always remained a distinguished public servant rather than an adventurer. After retiring from the army, he ran the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme for some years, before becoming chairman of the Parole Board. He has also taken part in several public enquiries and became a Life Peer in reward for his many and varied public services. Ed Hillary, also, has put a great deal back. His greatest work and contribution has undoubtedly been with the Sherpas, running a Sherpa Trust which has brought them a number of small hospitals and schools, helped them to build bridges and adapt in general to a changing world.
Everest has held its fascination, attracting climbers from every climbing country in the world, to repeat the route made by the 1953 expedition or to try to find a new way to the highest point on earth. It is a focal point of adventure that draws the participant as much as the onlooker, through the irresistible attraction of its supreme height, in which the sense of discovery, the challenge of risk, the sheer beauty of what can be seen from so high and the drive of ego-satisfaction all play their parts.