by Michael Gill
Route up Lhotse face Ice couloir with no camps Lhotse glacier with two camps
The use of oxygen
Of all the uncertainties hanging over the expedition, the most critical was the development of the oxygen apparatus. It was given such urgency by the Himalayan Committee that a plan was requested from Hunt only six days into his role as leader. Britain was in the fortunate position that during a protracted, all-consuming war it had developed a technological infrastructure that could be used on Everest. Air crew had needed oxygen sets when flying at high altitude. What was needed now was an adaptation for mountaineers.
The choice between open-and closed-circuit delivery systems sparked off intense debate. Both consist of a bottle of oxygen connected to a reservoir bag which leads into a face mask. Beyond this basic similarity, there are major differences.
In the open-circuit apparatus, an inspired breath consists partly of bottled oxygen, partly of ambient air. The expired air, still containing a lot of unused oxygen, is blown off into the surroundings. Ninety per cent of a climber’s precious bottled oxygen goes to waste, but enough is absorbed to reduce his apparent altitude to around 20,000ft.
The closed-circuit apparatus, which wastes nothing, is based on a compelling theory. The climber’s mask is a perfect fit to his shaved face so that outside air is entirely excluded. He is breathing pure oxygen from his oxygen cylinder so is effectively climbing at sea level. Expired air from the lungs is passed through a canister of soda lime for removal of the carbon dioxide which is the waste product of energy metabolism. The purified oxygen is recycled. The climber is living entirely off gas supplied by the British Oxygen Co. Ltd.
In the few closed-circuit systems that had been trialled before 1953, there were serious problems which showed up erratically as feelings of heat, choking and suffocation. The open-circuit system was criticised for being inefficient and unwieldy, requiring a huge weight of oxygen cylinders to be carried up the mountain. But there were keen protagonists for both systems. Tom Bourdillon, physicist, climber on Cho Oyu in 1952, and selected for Everest in 1953, believed he could develop a successful closed-circuit system. Peter Lloyd, of the Himalayan Committee, believed equally strongly in the superiority of open-circuit systems. As a climber on Everest in 1938 he had found such a system of considerable benefit while climbing to over 27,000ft, whereas a trial of a closed-circuit system had caused such unpleasant feelings of suffocation that he rejected it as a future option. In late 1952 it was agreed that development of both systems would proceed – but time was running short.
Doomsayers predicted that when either form of apparatus broke down the climber would simply collapse, but the limited evidence available was against such pessimism. Finch and Lloyd had both switched off their oxygen at 27,000ft and found they could cope with problems and descend with no more difficulty than someone who had not used oxygen.12
The expedition assembles in Kathmandu
Of the members gathered at the British Embassy in Kathmandu on 5 March 1953, Ed already knew those who had been on Cho Oyu. Now there were important new acquaintances to be made. The first of these was John Hunt, of whom Ed wrote:
Despite my pre-conceived prejudices I was immediately impressed. He greeted me with great warmth; told me he was expecting much from me and that he wanted me to share with Charles Evans the advisory tasks of his ‘Executive Committee’; and how he personally intended to lead from the front … he expressed a complete conviction that our party could get to the top …13
Tenzing was there too:
I was eager to meet Tenzing Norgay. His reputation had been most impressive even before his two great efforts with the Swiss expedition the previous year – and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Tenzing really looked the part – larger than most Sherpas he was very strong and active; his flashing smile was irresistible; and he was incredibly patient and obliging with all our questions and requests. His success in the past had given him great physical confidence – I think that even then he expected to be a member of the final assault party as he had been with both the Swiss expeditions although I am sure that neither John Hunt nor any of the rest of us took this for granted … One message came through, however, in very positive fashion – Tenzing had substantially greater personal ambition than any Sherpa I had met.14
Two members who were peripheral to the climbing team, but sharp observers, were cameraman Tom Stobart and Times correspondent James Morris. Stobart was 39, and had a varied history filming in the Himalayas, the Antarctic, Africa and Australia. He described meeting Ed Hillary:
My room-mate, who arrived in Kathmandu on the second day, was a skeleton, as tall as I was, with a New Zealand accent, a hatchet-thin face, and seemed tied together with steel. I learned that this man was called Ed Hillary. I had just got a rubber torch in pieces and couldn’t get it together again. This human machine took charge. ‘Let’s give it a go,’ he said, using an expression we came to know so well in the following months. It may have meant that he would try to fix it, but it did not. Actually it meant he would fix it, a subtle but important difference so far as Ed and his fellow countryman George Lowe, were concerned.15
Stobart had met John Hunt at the RGS four months earlier:
John was sitting at a desk piled high with papers … as I looked at this slightly grizzled soldier I felt there was no doubt that what a friend, who had served under him during the war, had told me was probably true. ‘If nobody else can get to the top of Everest, John will think it necessary to go there himself.’ Indeed truer words were never spoken or gave a better description of this formidably determined man.16
James Morris, 26, was the second-youngest expedition member after 24-year-old George Band. Having left school at age 17, he had served three years in the Middle East with the 9th Queen’s Lancers. After two years at Oxford he became a journalist with The Times, later becoming a full-time author, writing 18 books as James Morris and, after 1972, more than 30 as Jan Morris. In 1953, The Times, which owned the copyright to the Everest expedition dispatches, recognised that they needed their own journalist with the expedition rather than relying on a leader writing articles in his spare time. ‘Hunt,’ wrote Morris in his book Coronation Everest, ‘kindliest of commanders, digested the fact that I had never set foot on a mountain before and even summoned up a wan smile as, over lunch one day at the Garrick Club, he invited me to join his team as Special Correspondent of The Times.’17 Morris added immeasurably to the legend of the expedition by having its success announced to the world for the first time in London on the morning of 2 June, the day of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
– CHAPTER 15 –
‘We were on top of Everest!’1
By the end of March the expedition had set up an acclimatisation camp in front of Tengboche Monastery in a meadow strewn with mauve primulas and surrounded by forests of rhododendron, birch and juniper. Small grey musk deer and brilliantly coloured monal pheasants enjoyed the protection of the Buddhist monks. Like all first-time visitors, John Hunt was overwhelmed by what ‘must be one of the most beautiful places in the world’.2 The great walls and ridges of the inner ring of Khumbu peaks towered around them, framing the view of the Lhotse–Nuptse wall to the north-east with Everest behind. The top 2000 feet of their route was easily visible, a broad south-east ridge rising to the South Summit and, beyond that, to the unknown ridge leading to the highest point on Earth’s surface. Was it an impossibly corniced blade of ice interrupted by equally impossible rock steps? Until a climber stood on the South Summit, no one would know.
Two weeks were spent acclimatising on smaller peaks and being taught the use of the new oxygen sets by Tom Bourdillon. The assessments were enthusiastic. Even at heights of 18,000–20,000ft, the oxygen more than compensated for its weight. ‘I like this open-circuit jobbie,’ Ed wrote, and he applied himself to learning its habits.
April was the icefall month, somewhat difficult and more than somewhat dangerous, but there was no other way into the Western Cwm
. Once the route was established, with its staircases of ice, its fixed ropes and aluminium ladder bridging the huge topmost crevasse, daily convoys of Sherpas carried supplies to Camp 3 in the Cwm. Each group of laden Sherpas was roped to a climber to protect anyone who slipped or had a snow bridge collapse under them. This happened to Ed. Descending ahead of Tenzing, he jumped across a crevasse only to have the block he landed on collapse. Had Tenzing not been able to hold him with his belay, both would have plummeted into a crevasse of unknown depth and the history of the expedition would have been different. Audiences in years to come would say, ‘You must have been very grateful to Tenzing for holding you like that,’ to which Ed would reply, ‘Well actually, I would have been very disappointed if he hadn’t.’
May was when the more serious action took place. Advanced Base, Camp 4, was established on a protected site in the upper Cwm at 21,200ft, an altitude that was tolerable for everyone once acclimatised. From here there was a grandstand view of the next obstacle to be climbed, the 3500ft Lhotse Face that formed the head-wall of the great amphitheatre of the Cwm. When Bourdillon, Evans and Hunt set off on 2 May using closed-circuit oxygen, they were hoping that this new technology would work a miracle on the problems of altitude which began in earnest from this height upwards. Who knows, given good snow conditions and oxygen sets working to perfection they might even reach the South Col …
It didn’t work out that way. Their route was up a mixture of deep snow or steep, hard ice; the oxygen sets were uncomfortably hot; and the maximum height they reached was still an alarming 3000ft short of the Col. The weather was following its established pattern of intense heat in the morning, switching to a fall of thick new snow in the afternoon. It wasn’t going to be easy.
Down at Base Camp, the Hillary–Tenzing team was restlessly waiting their chance to share the lead. Ed had an idea. Bourdillon and Evans were up there trialling the closed-circuit sets. Why not mount a trial with the open-circuit system? With Hunt’s permission, Hillary and Tenzing left Base Camp at 6.30 a.m. on 4 L/min. Five hours later they walked into Advance Base, 3300ft higher. Though tired, they still had the energy to return to Base Camp in a snowstorm that afternoon. Theirs wasn’t a valid comparison with Bourdillon and Evans’s trial of the closed-circuit system – they were using a well-made route at a lower altitude – but it helped their reputation as the strongest climbing pair in the expedition, and confirmed Ed’s belief in the greater reliability of open-circuit oxygen.
Tom Bourdillon, developer and protagonist of the closed-circuit apparatus, was having his faith sorely tested as he trialled it in the Western Cwm. As well as the unpleasant heat of the closed system, he noted that after several hours of use ‘some pronounced after-effects were observed. For possibly two hours after taking the set off at the end of a day the user suffered from most of the symptoms normal to him in hypoxia – that is extreme lassitude, drowsiness and various minor aberrations of speech and memory … These effects were so marked that they became a standing joke.’3 One could never quite know what toxins might have found their way into the tiny environment of the closed-circuit system. Or was inert nitrogen leaking in around a not quite gas-tight face-mask from the outside air and diluting the oxygen? Was the discomfort due only to the circulating heat and humidity? These were unanswered questions in 1953.4
The die is cast
On 7 May, Hunt called the climbers together for the key meeting at which he would announce the plan for the assault. It was held in the big tent in the moraine-strewn squalor of Base Camp, and all of the 12 climbers were there except George Lowe and George Band who were at Camp 3. The broad outline was that between 7 and 15 May the route up the Lhotse Face to the South Col would have its steps plugged and cut, its ropes fixed and its camps established. This would culminate in a big carry of tents, food, fuel and oxygen by a team of 14 Sherpas to Camp 8 on the Col. When a window of fine weather arrived, a first assault would set out from the South Col using closed-circuit oxygen. A second assault, weather permitting, would follow next day.
The important questions for the climbers were who would do what. Some of the questions answered themselves. If there was to be an assault using closed-circuit oxygen, it would be led by Tom Bourdillon: no one else could cope with its problems. And accompanying him would be Charles Evans for the same reason. There would undoubtedly be an open-circuit attempt. Who was first choice for this? Hillary and Tenzing were the strongest pair.
From the South Col, Bourdillon and Evans would have 3000 feet of climbing between them and the summit. At the least they should reach the South Summit and, if the closed-circuit oxygen worked to perfection, they had a strong chance of reaching the top. The assault by Hillary and Tenzing, on the other hand, would take two days, with an intermediate Camp 9 at 28,000ft. For anyone laying bets, Hillary and Tenzing had the short odds.
That was four of the climbers accounted for, but what about the other eight? John Hunt had always seen himself as leading from the front. This meant he would position himself in the camp on the South Col, where he could direct and support five elite Sherpas who, if Bourdillon and Evans failed to reach the summit, would carry Camp 9 to around 28,000ft. He needed one other support climber on the South Col and, because Alf Gregory acclimatised well, Hunt gave the Camp 9 support position to him.
Two more climbers were required to accompany Sherpas on the carries between Advance Base and the South Col. Transport Officer Charles Wylie was an obvious choice. Wilf Noyce was selected alongside him, as he too handled the altitude well.
That left three climbers to establish the route up the Lhotse Face: Lowe, Band and Westmacott. The original plan had been for climbers to use oxygen while working on the Lhotse Face and also for sleeping, but there simply wasn’t enough of it, despite oxygen making up more than a third of the loads on the mountain. Lowe, Band and Westmacott would be cutting and plugging steps and fixing ropes all the way up the Lhotse Face without the enormous advantage of using oxygen. The twelfth man was Mike Ward, who was reserve climber as well as doctor.
Silence followed as each thought about his position. Charles Evans, as deputy leader, had been part of the planning so was not going to speak against it, but others might feel disappointed. George Lowe had started as Ed’s climbing partner with an outside chance he would be part of an assault. Now he would be expending all his energies on the Lhotse Face without the opportunity to go higher. He later confided his disappointment to Wilf Noyce, who was praising his work on the Face.
‘Ah, yes,’ George said, ‘but people judge you by how high you go, and it doesn’t look now as if I’ll make the South Col.’5
Then there was Mike Ward, who could have reasonably expected to have one of the stronger claims to a place in a summit team, yet here he was, a mere ‘reserve’. ‘Didn’t like it either,’ Ed wrote in his diary.6 In the event of the first two assaults failing, Ward could expect to be a member of a third attempt but it was a disappointment.
James Morris of The Times was another observer at the meeting:
Had anyone any questions or observations? Hunt asked, looking benignly around the tent with a soldierly air, as if he were about to order his company commanders to synchronise their watches.
‘Yes,’ said Michael Ward, with a vehemence that nearly knocked me off my packing-case. ‘I certainly have. I think it’s a great mistake that you’re going so high yourself. It’s a great mistake. You’ve done too much already. You shouldn’t go with that support team. I feel this very strongly.’
He spat this out with a flashing of eyes and a quivering of his saturnine head; and John thanked him gravely. The passionate doctor proved to be partly right. Hunt, who was forty-two, climbed extremely high … to the absolute limit of his endurance; and of all the climbers he was the most exhausted, so that I used to wonder, after the event, looking at his tired drawn face and thin body, moving with an air of infinite weariness, whether he would ever be quite the same again. But there, it was the sacrifice of leadership.7
; Slowing down on the Lhotse Face
On the Lhotse Face the team began to disintegrate before it had cut the first step. Band and Westmacott had not acclimatised well, as is common in first-time climbers, and both had suffered intermittently from dysentery during their time on the mountain. As well as this, Band had just developed a feverish cold.8 When they made their slow way to the foot of the face, they discovered that the strength they needed was not there. On 10 May, Lowe, accompanied by the Sherpa Ang Nima, and unaccompanied by any oxygen, began his lonely assault on the route from the head of the Cwm to the site of the midway camp – Camp 7 at 24,000ft. The weather was no help. Every afternoon snow came down, filling in steps that had been laboriously plugged or cut in the morning. Oxygen would have made a huge difference but there was none to spare.
Down at Camp 4/Advance Base, 21,200ft, anxiety grew as the team now assembled there watched the snail-like progress of Lowe and Ang Nima. One day the wind was too strong for the two climbers even to go outside. Another day Lowe took such a dose of sleeping pills that he was semi-comatose all next day. Mike Ward went up to help but after five nights he had to retreat, defeated by the altitude: ‘I tried as hard as I could to think of a reason for my poor condition, for I was going much worse than George all the time over 23,000 feet. I could think of none.’9
Ed later described how down at Advance Base he was getting edgy:
By May 19th George Lowe, Mike Ward and Ila Tenzing were in Camp 7 at 24,000 feet but the Lhotse Face attack had almost fizzled out … The weather had not in fact been very satisfactory but there was also a clear lack of vitality in our thrust at this stage. I knew from experience that George needed someone to stimulate him into the considerable action he was capable of – and he simply wasn’t getting this stimulation. I felt quite grumpy that I wasn’t allowed to go up and give him a hand. Next day John decided that George should come down and he returned to our camp as relaxed and cheerful as ever.10
