Everest E-Book

Reinhold Messner

• Herausgeber: Vertebrate Digital
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

'Everest by fair means - that is the human dimension, and that is what interests me … In reaching for the oxygen cylinder, a climber degrades Everest … a climber who doesn't rely on his own strength and skills, but on apparatus and drugs, deceives himself. In May 1978 Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler became the first climbers in history to reach the summit of Mount Everest without the use of supplementary oxygen - an event which made international headlines and permanently altered the future of mountaineering. Here Messner tells how the and Habeler accomplished the impossible - and how it felt. He describes the dangers of the Khumbu Icefield, the daunting Lhotse flank, two lonely storm-filled nights at 26,247 feet, and finally the last step to the summit. Everest: Expedition to the Ultimate is a riveting account of the exhaustion, the exhilaration and the despair of climbing into the death zone. The book also includes a history of the mountain, successful ascents and Messner's reflections on recent tragedies on Mount Everest. Reinhold Messner was the first to climb all fourteen peaks higher than 8,000 metres. The author of more than a dozen books on his adventures, he lives in a castle in northern Italy.

Leseprobe

Everest

Everest

Expedition to the Ultimate

Reinhold Messner

Translation by Audrey Salkeld

www.v-publishing.co.uk

.

I wanted to climb high again

in order to see

deep inside myself

– Contents –

Acknowledgements

Everest 2000

Everest as Consumable

The Idea

From Idea into an Ideal

With or Without Face Masks?

The Attempts of Norton and Mallory

Disappeared

Everest without Oxygen ’78

Fanatics, Charlatans and Conquerors

The Mountain

Dawa Tensing’s Hat

What If … ?

Yak and Yeti

In the Icefall

Camp Work – Camp Life

Collapse of the Ice Wall

Quite Alone

The Yellow Band

Buried Alive

A Whisky Bottle Full of Blood

At Death’s Door

Impossible

Everyone wants to go the Summit

The First Summit Success

Failure

To Be or to Have

Casting Adrift

To the Ultimate Point

An Eight-Thousander, a Hospital and a Wine Cellar

An Empty Void

Everest Chronicle

Everest Chronicle

The Chinese 1960 Everest Climb

The Expeditions (1921-1978)

Successful Ascents (1953-1999)

1953: The Top of the Pyramid

1963: The First Traverse

1969-75: To the South-west Face

1975: Two Women on the Roof of the World

Austrian Alpine Club 1978 Everest Expedition

Photographs

– Acknowledgements –

The author wishes to thank Anders Bolinder and Ulrich Link for early work on the ‘Everest Chronicle’; Xavier Eguskitsa, Elizabeth Hawley and Eberhard Jurgalski for recent facts in listings in editions of Peter Gillman’s Everest book and the American Alpine Journal, the Himalayan Journal and other sources.

Photos used in the book: Leo Dickinson, M. Rönnau, Robert Schauer, J. Ullal. Other photos are from the archives of the author or publisher. G. Lange for his map illustration, W. Quitta for his sketches and other illustrations.

From many sources the author wishes to note: Everest: Eighty Years of Triumph and Tragedy Peter Gillman (Little Brown, London/New York); The Fight for Everest, 1924 E.F. Norton (Arnold, London/Longmans, NY 1925); Sturm auf der Throne der Götter (Gutenberg, Frankfurt, 1950).

– Everest 2000 –

Mount Everest continues to make negative headlines: as a ‘rubbish tip’, a ‘fatal magnet for adrenaline-freaks’, or as ‘an amusement park for tourists who have been everywhere else’. Ever since word got out that you could purchase ‘the climb of your dreams’, an ascent of the highest mountain of the world – revered as holy by those living to the south or north of 'Sagarmatha’ or‘ Qomolungma’ (its local names), it became transformed into a consumer product. In Kathmandu and Lhasa, government departments and service-providers benefit from an Everest boom built upon the mythology which, over almost eighty years, has grown around a couple of dozen expeditionary mountaineers from Mallory to Ang Rita.

Mount Everest tends to shrink in our imagination when we read it has been ‘conquered’ by a couple of hundred mediocre alpinists, who probably would not trust themselves to climb Mont Blanc without help; but then it grows again, if a half dozen of these trophy-hunters get themselves killed in the process, as happened in 1996 in the course of two commercial climbing trips organised by Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. Jon Krakauer has written a profound book upon the subject, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster. Despite this, the hordes came again the following year, and once more there were tragedies.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that humans cannot survive at heights approaching 9,000 metres. While more and more of us climb where we don’t belong, the accidents will go on increasing and, with them, because of them in fact, so will the desire to make such an attempt. Treading the footsteps of those before them, waiting in line at the Hillary Step below the summit, growing numbers of people clamber to heights that offer no retreat for the inexperienced when storm, mist or avalanche play havoc with fuddled brains. What makes Mount Everest so dangerous is not the steepness of its flanks, nor the vast masses of rock and ice that can break away without warning. The most dangerous part of climbing Mount Everest is the reduced partial pressure of oxygen in the summit region, which dulls judgment, appreciation, and indeed one’s ability to feel anything at all.

With modern, lightweight oxygen apparatus the mountain can be outwitted, but what happens when the bottles are empty, when descent through a storm becomes impossible, when you can’t go a step further? An Everest climb cannot be planned like a journey from Zurich to Berlin, and it doesn’t end on the summit. In any sports shop you can buy, for a price, the lightest equipment there is, but you cannot purchase survival strategy. The client surrenders responsibility for him- or herself to the guide – and the higher the mountain, the more personal responsibility is yielded up, even though this is the basic prerequisite for any mountain experience. And what happens when the leader gets into difficulty? Clients are left hanging in the ropes on a mountain they neither know nor understand.

This Everest is no longer the Everest of the pioneers. Increasingly the apex of vanity, it has also become a substitute for something the summit-traveller wants to flaunt on his lapel, like a badge, without taking any of the responsibility in the field.

The more Mount Everest is turned into a consumer article, the more importance attaches to the key moments of its climbing history – with or without supplemental oxygen. As the highest mountain in the world – for trekkers, climbers, environmentalists, and aid workers (to say nothing of undertakers) – it is guaranteed more publicity than other mountain. Its mythos is continually being misinterpreted, so that it becomes a mountain of fortune and fantasy even for those with no need to go there themselves. For them, I tell this story of climbing ‘by fair means’.

– Everest as Consumable –

Since the beginning of the 1990s more than a thousand people a year converge on the flanks of the world’s highest mountain: hundreds on the north side (Tibet), a few on the east side (Tibet), with the bulk continuing to approach from the south (Nepal). Although permits have become more expensive and parties are threatened with all sorts of restrictions, Mount Everest has degenerated into a ‘fashionable’ mountain. Dozens make it to the summit each year. The increase in numbers attempting the climb produces a correspondingly higher number of successes and, on top of that, with so many expeditions on the mountain simultaneously, the actual climbing has become far easier: the ice fall is protected with fixed ropes and ladders, the trail broken and marked, high camps established, so that the line of the route is obvious for most of the way to the summit. Today’s Everest climber is scarcely ever exposed or completely alone; he or she climbs in a crocodile formation. And any exceptions to this scenario are increasingly rare.

For the first time, in the spring of 1979, a Yugoslav expedition successfully climbed the very difficult West Ridge: over the Lho La, the West Shoulder, and directly up the rocky ridge to the summit.

In February 1980, two days after the winter climbing season ended ‘officially’, Polish mountaineers became the first to climb to the top of the world at the coldest time of year.

Russian mountaineers claimed the South Pillar in pre-monsoon 1982. Technically, this prominent rock buttress to the left of the South-west Face may well be the most difficult route on the mountain.

In 1983 a team of distinguished American mountaineers at last succeeded in finding a route up Everest’s East Face, known as the Kangshung Face.

The Great Couloir on the North Flank, between the North Ridge and a blunt pillar in the central section of the massive face, was climbed by an Australian team in 1984. Variations to the line were done later.

In 1988, ten years after the first ascent of the mountain without oxygen masks, Stephen Venables made it to the top of Everest after an incomparable achievement. Forming a small, unsupported expedition with Robert Anderson and Ed Webster, Venables struggled up a new line to the left of the American Route on the Kangshung Face. All three reached the South Col without supplemental oxygen, climbed higher and survived the panic of losing themselves at those forsaken heights. Venables reached the summit alone and, days later, despite frostbite and complete exhaustion, the crazy trio returned safely to base camp.

There are still possibilities of a pioneering nature waiting to be done on Mount Everest. Even today – should anyone be looking for them. But who cares to take on the challenge of exposure and loneliness away from the beaten track when the summit can be ‘bagged’ so much more easily?

In 1980 when I made my solo ascent during the monsoon period, there was not another soul anywhere above base camp. For five whole days I climbed in complete isolation, dependent solely on my own resources – and putting myself further from the inhabited earth with every upward step. My body was a wreck at the end of it; I survived despite myself, but as a worn-out shell.

By contrast, many of today’s Everest ‘conquerors’ are far better at managing their bodies than their minds. The preoccupation for this ‘no-limits’ generation is a quick thrill, rather than choosing the toilsome solitary path with its lengthy periods of sorrow and anguish. They race up prepared trails, ill acclimatised as often as not, from one established camp to the next, all the way to the airy encampment on the South Col. Sherpa Ang Rita, almost fifty years old, who has been to the top of Everest more times than anyone else, shows them the way from there. Some launch themselves back down again from the summit ridge with their parachutes, hang gliders, or skis.

As in the Alps, where it has become modish to rappel into wildwater ravines, bungee-jump, or to go for the short buzz of swarming up an overhang, wealthy, cosseted clients in the Himalaya hope that a dose of Everest will boost their endorphin levels. Without giving much thought to what they do, they follow a trend, an ideology which glorifies the physical and promises recognition as reward for overcoming fear. These people get recognition from others, but less of that feeling of self-worth which comes after putting weeks and months into something where you are dependent only upon yourself, and prey to hopes and doubts.

The kind of excitement offered by travel bureaus is gained for the least possible outlay (in all but monetary terms). The guide and the Sherpa assistants take responsibility not only for the camps, the route, and everyone’s safety, but also for the client’s enjoyment. The promoters of this ‘rapture-of-the-heights’ know well to let their clients believe that nothing can happen to them, even though they are climbing the same mountain as Hillary and Tenzing climbed in 1953.

More than a hundred people have been killed attempting Everest, including sixty Sherpas and other Nepalis, whose deaths are to be deplored as ‘industrial accidents’. A thousand people have reached the summit, 10 per cent of whom have climbed without oxygen masks, albeit frequently in the steps of trail-breakers who were using oxygen. To date, less than 5 per cent of the summiteers have been women, but this could be set to change, since women turn out to be stronger than men at high altitude.

The oldest person to get to the top was sixty years old, the youngest seventeen. All that’s lacking is for a couple to get married up there. Generations have moved on: Peter Hillary, the son of the first ascensionist, stood on the summit forty years after his father; the grandson of George Leigh Mallory went up in 1995, and Tenzing’s son made it in 1996.

Still, it is not the spirit of the times, nor mass tourism which keeps Everest at the forefront of fashion year by year. It is the hundreds of individuals who foster ambitions for their own personal summit experience.

The thirteen routes which have been established on the mountain so far provide room enough for many; and Mount Everest is only one among millions of high mountains – albeit a very special one. But all the while strings of climbers flock up one single route, the experience brought home from the roof of the world will diminish as each season passes.

Summit Report on Tape

For a better understanding of this book, it is important to know that during each of his climbs of Mount Everest, Reinhold Messner held in his hand a mini tape-recorder with which he recorded his feelings and impressions – all the way to the summit. He recorded conversations there as they took place. The 24-hour tapes were later typed up and then condensed by the author, but not essentially changed in regards to contents, speech, and testimony. This form of ‘on the spot’ reporting gives the book its character; through its absolute authenticity it produces essentials out of the discussion of incidentals. The immediacy and uncertainty of the climb come through in the conversations. In this way, Messner has preserved his experiences through the descent of Mount Everest and into the reading room. Conversations, as banal as they often may sound, were conducted at 8,000 and 8,500 metres above sea level exactly as they are written here. It would have been wrong to adorn them later with artistic words. Messner did not do that. Through this oral journal form, he has created a unique document that perhaps does not read smoothly, but in speech and detail could not have been recreated after the fact: a sincere and candid eyewitness account.

The Nature of the Account

An account of an expedition is not a novel. Therefore an authentic account can never be given, let alone written down, by someone who was not present. Any account of an expedition can be checked only by the people who took part in it, and is subject, first and foremost to their criticism. An account of an expedition must, above all, give a true rendering of the facts, and make it possible for all those who took part in it to identify with the tale that is told. That does not mean that there is only one true account of an expedition – there are as many versions of the truth as there are participants.

In the case of a novel any author has the right to project his personal experiences, perceptions and truths into a fictional tale.

An account of an expedition contains no fictional tales, nor any of the heroes of the novel.

The great art of writing the book of an expedition consists in recounting faithfully an actual and inextinguishable experience and in revealing one’s own feelings in the first person. If a man is not prepared to reveal anything, he has nothing to say.

Reinhold Messner

The Idea

– From an Idea into an Ideal –

To begin with, it was just a beautiful illusion, a fantasy, to imagine climbing the highest mountain in the world without technical assistance. But out of this illusion a concept grew and finally, a philosophy: can man, solely by his own efforts, reach the summit of Everest? Is the world so constructed that man can climb to its highest point without mechanical aids?

I don’t climb mountains simply to vanquish their summits. What would be the point of that? I place myself voluntarily into dangerous situations to learn to face my own fears and doubts, my innermost feelings.

The ‘adventure’ is immediately diminished as soon as man, to further his own ambition, uses technology as a hoist. Even the highest mountains begin to shrink if they are besieged by hundreds of porters, attacked with pegs and oxygen apparatus. In reaching for an oxygen cylinder, a climber degrades Everest to the level of a six-thousand metre peak.

The Himalayan pioneers ventured cautiously up into the great heights, groping their way, sometimes in small groups, sometimes alone. The fascinating tales they brought back of the loneliest regions of the world inspired other adventurers to follow their example. But they all lived in harmony with the mystery of the mountains. It was only with the nationalistic expeditions of the inter and post war years and their great emphasis on ‘conquest’, that the delicate balance between the adventurer and the ‘unknown’ was destroyed.

Some of the mystery ebbs with every expedition. A mountain region is soon exhausted when no rein is placed on technical assistance, when a summit triumph is more important to a mountaineer than self-discovery. The climber who doesn’t rely on his own strength and skills, but on apparatus and drugs, deceives himself.

The face mask is like a barrier between man and nature; it is a filter that hinders his visionary perceptions. An Everest ascent without using artificial oxygen is the only alternative to previous ascents, all of which were made with its help.

‘Everest by fair means’ – that is the human dimension, and that is what interests me.

Mountains are so elemental that man does not have the right nor the need to subdue them with technology. Only the man who chooses his tools with humility can experience natural harmony.

Suddenly, I begin to nurture this idea. I want to climb until I either reach the top of the mountain, or I can go no further. I feel so passionately about this that I am prepared to endure anything, to risk much. I am willing to go further than ever I have before. I am resolved, for this idea, to stake everything I have.

– With or Without Face Masks? –

The idea of attempting Mount Everest without oxygen apparatus is as old as the climbing history of this, the highest of all mountains. Even in 1922 on the second British expedition, the ‘with’ or ‘without’ question was hotly debated:

Everyone was agreed about the ultimate goal; the summit of the world! What they were divided about was what technical assistance they could employ to achieve it. The big obstacle, they knew, apart from the wind, was the thin air, the lack of oxygen, which would seriously limit a man’s capabilities. At that time, it wasn’t yet understood just how the human body could adapt. What more logical than to take to the mountain the oxygen that was lacking up there? That’s what airmen already did! Dr Kellas – who died on the march-in to Everest in 1921 – had made the first experiments with oxygen, but was unable to come to any conclusive opinion about it, as the big steel flasks that he took with him were too heavy and unwieldy. Besides this, there was strong prejudice in mountain climbing circles against the employment of oxygen; it was considered an unfair advantage in the struggle of man against mountain – a view that was shared by the Mount Everest Committee, which was comprised of representatives of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club. But Captain Finch and Howard Somervell argued so persuasively for it, that the committee allowed itself to be swayed.[1] Finch set about producing an apparatus that could be used by climbers and to some extent, he succeeded. He constructed a frame for the climber to carry on his back and which contained four cylinders of oxygen. Each cylinder was charged to a pressure of 120 atmospheres and each would last for about two hours. Copper tubes led the oxygen from the flasks to the climber’s chest, upon which a pressure gauge and flow meter were situated. Rubber tubes then conveyed the costly gas to the mask, which practically covered the whole face. Sadly, it later turned out that these masks were quite unsuitable in use, and Finch modified them, producing something significantly simpler and which stood up well. But although everything had been done to make the apparatus as light as possible, each climber still had to carry a load of something over 16 kilos.[2]

Two years later, in 1924, Lieutenant-Colonel E.F. Norton climbed without oxygen to a height of almost 8,600 metres above sea level, a record that lasted until 1978. Chinese climbers, who in 1975 followed the North Ridge route, reconnoitred by the British expeditions, and reached the summit of their Chomolungma (Qomolangma) – as Everest is known in Tibet – claimed not to have used oxygen during their climb but only partook of ‘oxygen inhalings’, that is to say, they breathed extra oxygen during their rest pauses from cylinders carried with them:

Without having a break and inhaling oxygen, they clambered for one and a half hours at 8,000 metres above sea level on Qomolangma Feng, although the air contained only one third of the normal amount of oxygen at sea level. At about 9.30, after a ten-minute rest on top of the ‘Second Step’, or the second major obstacle on the way up, they inhaled oxygen for two or three minutes at a flow of two to five litres per minute. The summiteers continued their clamber.[3]

It was apparent from the film they made at the time, that the Chinese all took doses of oxygen frequently.

1. Translator's note: It is true that Dr Somervell was a member of the Oxygen Committee in 1922. However, as a physiologist, and in any case being himself possessed of remarkable powers of endurance, he favoured an attempt without oxygen. Using it, he felt, would prevent the degree of acclimatization an individual could expect to acquire.[back]

2. Rudolf Skuhra: Sturm auf die Throne der Goiter, Buchergilde Gutenberg, Frankfurt 1950.[back]

3. Nine who climbed Qomolangma Feng – official Chinese report published in Mountain No. 46, 1975.[back]

– The Attempts of Norton and Mallory –

A few days before my departure for Nepal, I receive a letter from Richard Norton, son of the Everest pioneer who has strongly influenced my thinking.

Dear Mr Messner,

I was most interested to read a recent account in The Times of your and Mr Habeler’s forthcoming attempt to climb Mount Everest without oxygen. I should explain that I am the son of Colonel (as he then was) E.F. Norton, whose Everest attempt in 1924, when he reached a height of over 28,100 feet without oxygen, you have been quoting.

My father certainly believed that, given the right conditions Everest could be climbed without oxygen.

My mother and my two brothers join me in wishing Mr Habeler and you the best of luck. We shall be following the reports of your expedition with the greatest interest.

Yours sincerely,

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard P. Norton

It is true that E.F. Norton in his day believed that success without oxygen apparatus was possible and had written that he could see no reason why a well-trained, fully-acclimatised man should not climb Everest without oxygen assistance.

Packing for our expedition, I become oblivious of much that goes on around me, I stop reading the newspapers and frequently ignore the telephone, but whenever I find the time I re-read Norton’s account of his and Somervell’s attempt in 1924:[1]

Somervell and I started off from Camp III on1 June to follow in Mallory and Bruce’s steps. … The porters told off to accompany Somervell and me, and to establish our camp at 25,500 feet (7,800 metres), were six in number, and of these three were to come on to 27,000 (8,200 metres) …

At 3 p.m. (we) reached Camp IV, where Odell and Irvine took charge of us, allotted us tents and cooked and served us our meals, for they were now installed in their new role as ‘supporters’. …

The morning of 2 June broke fine, and by 6.30 Somervell and I were off with our little party of six porters. The reader will understand that Mallory and Bruce were to have established Camp V overnight; this morning they should have been heading up the North Ridge for Camp VI, carrying with them the tent and sleeping-bags in which they had slept the night before. Our loads, therefore, must comprise one 10-pound tent, two sleeping-bags, food and ‘meta’ (solid spirit) for ourselves for a possible three nights and for the porters for one; above the North Col porters’ loads were always cut down to a maximum of 20 pounds a man, preferably a little under that weight. I cannot remember the exact details of the loads our men carried, but I know they were laden so near the limit that Somervell and I had to carry (as we had done the day before) a light rucksack apiece, with compass, electric torch, a few spare woollen garments, a change of socks, etc., for our own personal use.

Our route crossed the actual col just below the western lip and, as we emerged from the snow hummocks to traverse it, we suddenly found ourselves in shadow and exposed to the full force of the west wind – from which we were completely sheltered both at Camp IV and in the intervening section; that was a bad moment, its memory is still fresh. The wind, even at this early hour, took our breath away like a plunge into the icy waters of a mountain lake, and in a minute or two our well-protected hands lost all sensation as they grasped the frozen rocks to steady us.

Some little way above the col we emerged into sunlight again, and though we got the full benefit of the wind all the way up the ridge we never again experienced anything quite so blighting as those few minutes in the shady funnel of the col. Nevertheless the wind was all day a serious matter. Though it seemed to cut clean through our windproof clothes, it yet had so solid a push to it that the laden porters often staggered in their steps. …

We followed our old route of 1922 – the blunt ridge known as the North Arête. For the first 1,500 feet or more the edge of a big snow-bed forms the crest of the ridge, representing the very top of that great mass of hanging ice which clothes the whole of the eastern slopes and cliffs of the North Col. Ascending, we stuck to the rocks just clear of this snow-bed; descending it is possible to glissade the whole length of it down to the col. The rocks are quite easy, but steep enough to be very hard work at those heights. About half-way up this day’s climb was the spot where two years before I had, while taking a short rest, placed between my feet my rucksack, containing a few woollen comforts for the night, and something starting it off, it slipped from my grasp and in a second was leaping and bounding like a great football with the evident intention of stopping nowhere short of the main Rongbuk Glacier below. This gives a fair picture of the general angle of the climb.

Somewhere about this same spot we heard something above and, looking up, were not a little disconcerted to see one Dorjay Pasang, descending to meet us. He was Mallory’s and Bruce’s leading porter, their first pick and one of the men on whom our highest hopes centred. We had hardly heard his tale of woe and read a note he brought from Mallory when we saw above Mallory, Bruce and three more porters descending in his tracks.

The wind was too cold for a long conversation, and their story was distressingly simple. On the preceding day they had met a very bitter wind all the way up the arête on which we now stood – so bitter that it had quite taken the heart out of their porters. They had pitched two tents at Camp V at a little over 25,000 feet and spent the night, but next morning nothing – not even Bruce’s command of the language and well-known influence over these men – would induce any of the porters to go higher, and the end of it was that they had to return. Incidentally, Bruce had had to help the last two or three porters into camp the night before, carrying their loads for them for a short distance, and it was quite evident to us that these excessive exertions had affected him in some way – a surmise which was later confirmed by the discovery that he had strained his heart. So he himself was in no fit state to go on, though none who knew him will doubt that he would have done so could the porters have been induced to accompany him. Now there is a moral attached to this story. My diary (written at Camp IV) for the day when this fatal wind was encountered mentions the fact that the weather was ‘quite perfect’; the porters who failed were the pick of the ‘Tigers’, presumably among the best men we had. Yet these picked men, under the one Sahib of all our party who knew best how to lead the Sherpa porter and on a day which at Camp IV appeared ‘quite perfect’, were clean knocked out by wind and couldn’t be induced to advance beyond 25,200 feet.

As Camp V had been left all standing with tents and bedding destined to go higher that morning, Somervell and I were able to detach two of the porters who had accompanied us so far, to return with the descending party, and we now continued with four men, the three whose names I have already given and one Lobsang Tashi, a simple, good-natured giant from the eastern borders of Tibet. We reached Camp V without incident about 1 p.m. We had no difficulty in finding the camp from Mallory’s description and from certain strips of coloured cloth which each party carried to serve as sign-posts and which had been put up at the point where we were to leave the ridge. The two tents were pitched one above the other on crumbling platforms built on the steep slope just over the edge, and on the east or sheltered side of the North Arête.

The afternoon was spent as every afternoon must always be spent under these conditions. On arrival one crawls into the tent, so completely exhausted that for perhaps three-quarters of an hour one just lies in a sleeping-bag and rests. Then duty begins to call, one member of the party with groans and pantings and frequent rests crawls out of his bag, out of the tent and a few yards to a neighbouring patch of snow, where he fills two big aluminium pots with snow, by what time his companion with more panting and groans sits up in bed, lights the meta burner and opens some tins and bags of food – say a stick of pemmican, some tea, sugar and condensed milk, a tin of sardines or bully beef and a box of biscuits.

Presently both are again ensconced in their sleeping-bags side by side, with the meta cooker doing its indifferent best to produce half a pot of warm water from each piled pot of powdery snow. It doesn’t sound a very formidable proceeding, and it might appear that I have rather overdrawn the panting and groans; but I have carried out this routine on three or four occasions, and I can honestly say that I know nothing – not even the exertion of steep climbing at these heights which is so utterly exhausting or which calls for more determination than this hateful duty of high-altitude cooking. The process has to be repeated two or three times as, in addition to the preparation of the evening meal, a thermos flask or two must be filled with water for to-morrow’s breakfast and the cooking pots must be washed up. Perhaps the most hateful part of the process is that some of the resultant mess must be eaten, and this itself is only achieved by will power: there is but little desire to eat – sometimes indeed a sense of nausea at the bare idea – though of drink one cannot have enough …

With one last look at the panorama of glacier and mountain spread out below a world composed of three elements only, rock, snow and ice, the mountain-tops now gilded by the declining sun and Camp III just discernible in the cold shadow of the North Peak under our feet – we turned in for the night, with gloomy forebodings for the morrow; for there was nothing whatever in the attitude of our porters to-night to encourage us to hope that we should next day succeed any better than Mallory and Bruce …

On the morning of 3 June we were up at 5 a.m., and while Somervell busied himself with preparations for breakfast I climbed down to the porters’ tent with some misgivings as to what their condition would prove to be. My fears were justified, and for some time groans were the only answer to my questions. But having at last, as I thought, inspired the men sufficiently to induce them to cook and eat a meal, I returned and had breakfast.

I then again tackled them, for they seemed incapable of making any sort of a move without much stimulating … I talked for a long time to these men, pointing out the honour and glory that they would achieve if they would but carry their loads another 2,000 feet – thus passing by 1,500 feet the highest point to which loads had ever been carried.

I remember saying, ‘If you put us up a camp at 27,000 feet and we reach the top, your names shall appear in letters of gold in the book that will be written to describe the achievement.’ To make a very long story short I succeeded in inducing the three – Narbu Yishe, Llakpa Chede and Sempchumbi – lame as he was – to come on, and we actually started from camp at 9 a.m. – four hours after we had got up. Truly it is not easy to make an early start on Mount Everest!

Of our ascent of the ridge there is little to tell; it was a repetition of the climb of the day before and was over ground familiar to Somervell and myself, as we had traversed exactly the same route when making for our highest point two years before …

Some time after midday we recognised and passed the highest point that Mallory, Somervell and I had reached in 1922. As I have said before, one’s sensations are dulled at these altitudes, but I remember a momentary uplift at the thought that we were actually going to camp higher than the highest point ever reached without oxygen. With a clear day ahead of us, and given favourable conditions, what might we not achieve! …

About 2.30 we sent the three porters down. They had nearly 4,000 feet to descend, for we have since estimated the height of Camp VI at about 26,000 feet, and one of them was lame, so there was not too much time for them to reach Camp IV by daylight. I gave the men a note to be shown to the Sahib in charge of each camp to say that they had done splendidly, and were to be fed on the fat of the land and passed comfortably to the Base Camp and a well-earned rest.

We afterwards learnt that on this day, Odell and Hazard, the latter of whom had reached Camp IV the day before, climbed to Camp V, returning to Camp IV the same night. Odell was after fossils, and actually found the first ever collected on Mount Everest, and Hazard accompanied him for air and exercise.[2] This little stroll is a curious commentary on the fact that two years before the scientists were debating whether human beings could exist without oxygen at 25,000 feet.

Somervell and I spent the afternoon as on the day before, with the exception that we had now no porters to stimulate, and this was fortunate, for as you near 27,000 feet you have no great surplus of determination. My diary for the day finishes with the surprising entry: ‘Spent the best night since I left Camp I’; yet it was true in my case, and Somervell was at least fairly comfortable if he didn’t sleep quite so well as I did. As one of our doubts had always been whether it would be possible to sleep, or even rest well, at 27,000 feet, this is an interesting point. Besides my boots I took to bed with me in my eiderdown sleeping-bag two thermos flasks filled with warm tea; towards morning I found that one of these had got rid of its cork, and its contents – no longer warm – had emptied into my bed.

Once more our hopes of an early start were shattered; snow had to be fetched and melted to provide the essential drink for breakfast … Yet somehow the job was done and we were off at 6.40.

Perhaps an hour beyond camp we encountered the bottom edge of the great thousand-foot-deep band of yellow sandstone that crosses the whole north face of Everest from shoulder to shoulder, and is so conspicuous a feature of the mountain as seen from the north. This afforded easy going as we traversed it diagonally, for it was made up of a series of broad ledges running parallel to its general direction and sufficiently broken up to afford easy access, one to the next.

The day was fine and nearly windless – a perfect day for our task – yet it was bitterly cold, and I remember shivering so violently as I sat in the sun during one of our numerous halts, dressed in all the clothes I have described, that I suspected the approach of malaria and took my pulse. I was surprised to find it only about sixty-four, which is some twenty above my normally very slow pulse. I was not wearing snow goggles except when actually on snow – a very small proportion of the day’s climb – as I had found that the rims of my goggles somewhat interfered with a clear view of my steps. At a height of about 27,500 feet I began to experience some trouble with my eyes; I was seeing double, and in a difficult step was sometimes in doubt where to put my feet. I thought that this might be a premonitory symptom of snow-blindness, but Somervell assured me that this could not be the case, and he was undoubtedly right, for I have since been told that it was a symptom of lack of control and due to the insufficiency of oxygen in the air I was breathing.

Our pace was wretched. My ambition was to do twenty consecutive paces uphill without a pause to rest and pant, elbow on bent knee; yet I never remember achieving it – thirteen was nearer the mark. The process of breathing in the intensely cold dry air, which caught the back of the larynx, had a disastrous effect on poor Somervell’s already very bad sore throat and he had constantly to stop and cough. Every five or ten minutes we had to sit down for a minute or two, and we must have looked a sorry couple.

The view from this great height was disappointing. From 25,000 feet the wild tangle of snowy peaks and winding glaciers, each with its parallel lines of moraine like cart tracks on a snowy road, was imposing to a degree. But we were now high above the highest summit in sight, and everything below us was so flattened out that much of the beauty of outline was lost. To the north, over the great plateau of Tibet, the eye travelled over range upon range of minor hills until all sense of distance was lost, only to be sharply regained on picking up a row of snow-peaks just appearing over the horizon like tiny teeth. The day was a remarkably clear one in a country of the clearest atmosphere in the world, and the imagination was fired by the sight of these infinitely distant peaks tucked away over the curve of the horizon.

Towards noon we found ourselves just below the top edge of the band of sandstone and nearing the big couloir or gully which runs vertically down the mountain and cuts off the base of the final pyramid from the great northern shoulder. The line we had followed was one roughly parallel to and perhaps 500 to 600 feet below the crest of the North-east Arête; this was the line Somervell and I had always favoured in preference to the actual crest, which Mallory advocated.

At midday Somervell succumbed to his throat trouble. He declared that he was only delaying me, and urged me to go on alone and reach the top. I left him sitting under a rock just below the topmost edge of the sandstone band and went on. I followed the actual top edge of the band, which led at a very slightly uphill angle into and across the big couloir; but to reach the latter I had to turn the ends of the two pronounced buttresses which ran down the face of the mountain, one of which we called the second step, and which looked so formidable an obstacle where it crossed the ridge that we had chosen the lower route rather than try and surmount it at its highest point. From about the place where I met with these buttresses the going became a great deal worse; the slope was very steep below me, the foothold ledges narrowed to a few inches in width, and as I approached the shelter of the big couloir there was a lot of powdery snow which concealed the precarious footholds. The whole face of the mountain was composed of slabs like the tiles on a roof, and all sloped at much the same angle as tiles. I had twice to retrace my steps and follow a different band of strata; the couloir itself was filled with powdery snow into which I sank to the knee or even to the waist, and which was yet not of a consistency to support me in the event of a slip. Beyond the couloir the going got steadily worse; I found myself stepping from tile to tile, as it were, each tile sloping smoothly and steeply downwards; I began to feel that I was too much dependent on the mere friction of a boot nail on the slabs. It was not exactly difficult going, but it was a dangerous place for a single unroped climber, as one slip would have sent me in all probability to the bottom of the mountain. The strain of climbing so carefully was beginning to tell and I was getting exhausted. In addition my eye trouble was getting worse and was by now a severe handicap. I had perhaps 200 feet more of this nasty going to surmount before I emerged on to the north face of the final pyramid and, I believe, safety and an easy route to the summit. It was now 1 p.m., and a brief calculation showed that I had no chance of climbing the remaining 800 or 900 feet if I was to return in safety.

At a point subsequently fixed by theodolite as 28,126 feet I turned back and retraced my steps to rejoin Somervell. In an hour I had gained but little – probably 100 feet in height, and in distance perhaps 300 yards – on the position where we had separated. Surveying is an exact science, and I must not quarrel with Hazard for fixing our highest point 24 feet below the height of Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world.

I feel that I ought to record the bitter feeling of disappointment which I should have experienced on having to acknowledge defeat with the summit so close; yet I cannot conscientiously say that I felt it much at the time. Twice now I have had thus to turn back on a favourable day when success had appeared possible, yet on neither occasion did I feel the sensations appropriate to the moment. This I think is a psychological effect of great altitudes; the better qualities of ambition and will to conquer seem dulled to nothing, and one turns downhill with but little feelings other than relief that the strain and effort of climbing are finished.

I was near the end of my powers, and had for some time been going too slowly to hope to reach the summit. Whether the height I had reached was nearing the limit of human endurance without the artificial aid of oxygen, or whether my earlier exertions and hardships in the month of May accounted for my exhaustion, I cannot, of course, say, but I incline to the latter opinion; and I still believe that there is nothing in the atmospheric conditions even between 28,000 and 29,000 feet to prevent a fresh and fit party from reaching the top of Mount Everest without oxygen.

One small incident will serve to show that I must have been very much below my proper form at this time, and that my nerve had been shaken by the last two hours of climbing alone on steep and slippery going. As I approached Somervell I had to cross a patch of snow lying thinly over some sloping rocks. It was neither steep nor difficult, and not to be compared to the ground I had just left, yet suddenly I felt that I could not face it without help, and I shouted to Somervell to come and throw me the end of the rope. Here again I remember the difficulty I had in making my voice carry perhaps a hundred yards. Somervell gave me the required aid, and I could see the surprise he felt at my needing it in such a place.

Then came the descent. Soon after we started down, at about 2 p.m., Somervell’s axe slipped from his numb fingers and went cart-wheeling down the slopes below. This must have been somewhere about the point where an hour or two before he had taken his highest photograph; and it is a proof of the deceptive picture of the true angle of the mountain conveyed by these photographs that it does not give the impression that a dropped axe would go any distance without coming to rest, yet his never looked like stopping, and disappeared from our view still going strong.

We retraced our steps of the morning; we made very poor going, descending at a very much slower pace than we had made two years before when we turned back from our highest point some one thousand feet lower.