Edmund Hillary--A Biography

by Michael Gill

  One wonders if Tenzing had been approached even before the expedition had set out. There had been the incident when the Sherpas mounted a protest that their accommodation in the Embassy garage was unsatisfactory when the British were in Embassy beds. Maybe, but most ordinary expeditions, including the climbers, would have been grateful for use of the Embassy garage and grounds. It sounded as though there had been some stirring in the background. In the accounts of the expedition as it unfolded, Tenzing comes across as not fully at ease. He showed disappointment when no Sherpa was included in the Bourdillon–Evans first assault. He’d been essential to the management of Sherpas and porters, but on the final climb he’d played second to Hillary’s lead. Partly this was because Hillary was more used to cutting steps, but more important was the fact that they were almost wholly dependent on their oxygen equipment and Ed was the one who knew how to calculate flow rates and fix faults. It was the language problem again. Those who could describe how to use oxygen spoke only English. On the climb itself, communication was rudimentary: a few words of English from Tenzing, a very few words of Hindi from Ed. When Ed agreed to a request from the Sherpas of Khumjung in 1961 that he build them a school where they would learn to read and write, he was correcting a crippling inequality in their lives.

  As to who got there first – the question that would be put to Ed repeatedly for the rest of his life – it was answered by Tenzing in 1955. In his autobiography, ghost-written by American writer James Ramsey Ullman, Tenzing gave an unequivocal description of the last few feet:

  A little below the summit Hillary and I stopped. We looked up. Then we went on. The rope that joined us was thirty feet long, but I held most of it in loops in my hand, so that there was only about six feet between us. I was not thinking of ‘first’ and ‘second.’ I did not say to myself, ‘There is a golden apple up there. I will push Hillary aside and run for it.’ We went on slowly, steadily. And then we were there. Hillary stepped on top first. And I stepped up after him …

  Now the truth is told. And I am ready to be judged by it.21

  The man who made it possible

  The other revisionist proposition was that Griffith Pugh was the individual who made the 1953 expedition successful. This suggestion came from Mike Ward, who had already earned a special place in the history of Everest through his launch of the 1951 reconnaissance. Without him the British might well have missed out on their 1953 place. He has his own claim to be ‘the man who made it possible’.

  He was still important in mid-1952 when the 1953 expedition was taking shape. The 1951 team of Shipton, Ward, Bourdillon and Hillary, with Charles Evans added, were the core group for 1953. But then Shipton was eased out and replaced by an outsider, Colonel John Hunt, whose first task was to select the expedition personnel. Ward wrote of his meeting with Hunt: ‘My first impression 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 …’22

  Other expedition members initially expressed similar reservations about being led by a soldier who might simply bark orders from a command tent, but when they met him they found qualities of leadership, warmth and empathy that allowed the whole party to regard him with admiration and affection.

  The whole party, that is, except Mike Ward who had been more displaced than most. He had wanted to be a full member of the climbing team and potentially someone who might get to the top. Hunt’s decision to have a doctor who kept in good health by not pushing himself hard as a climber was a reasonable one, but not what Mike wanted. In the event, he was called into his role as reserve climber when the attack on the Lhotse Face was faltering, but he was not well enough acclimatised to be strong at 24,000ft. Later experience on Makalu in 1961 would show that this was around Mike’s altitude ceiling. He happened to be one of those people who for individual physiological reasons do not acclimatise easily. But this was not clear in 1953, and at the important meeting on 7 May when Hunt announced that as leader he would go to the South Col in support, Ward gave his medical opinion that he was not strong enough. But Hunt carried his load and part of a Sherpa’s to 27,300ft, and three days later the expedition achieved their goal. Two members reached the summit. The leader had got it right.

  In 1951 Ward had begun reading about the physiological problems of Everest as well as its Nepali approaches. Through this he met Griff Pugh at the Division of Human Physiology of the Medical Research Council. When Pugh returned from Cho Oyu in June 1952, preparations for 1953, in particular the development of oxygen apparatus, were already well under way. When Hunt took over planning in October, he consulted widely, including with Pugh who had returned from the Himalayas with useful observations on oxygen, clothing, boots, fluid intake, food and hygiene. But there were also many others back in England who recognised that oxygen was the stuff that would make the climb possible.

  In the book of the expedition Hunt wrote:

  Among the numerous items in our inventory, I would single out oxygen for special mention. Many of our material aids were of great importance; only this in my opinion, was vital to success. In this department perhaps more than in any other, those who worked to satisfy our requirements had the hardest task of all, for time was so short. But for oxygen, without the much-improved equipment which we were given, we should certainly not have got to the top.23

  One might have hoped that everyone would live happily ever after, but Ward was troubled by the thought that the scientist Griff Pugh, and by association his companion Mike Ward, had received less than the recognition due to them. He pointed this out at the twentieth Everest anniversary in 1973, and noted in particular the physiological work on Cho Oyu that had led to success: ‘Their results were of unprecedented value, [as] for the first time the problems posed by high altitude were defined in the field. This was the decisive advantage that we in 1953 were to have over all who had gone before us.’24

  Ward’s work did not go unrecognised, and in 1983 he was awarded a CBE. The next big anniversary was the fortieth in 1993, when the Queen attended a lecture presentation. Slides were shown as expedition members praised each other’s achievements as being essential to the expedition’s success. But then the unexpected happened. Mike Ward, who had a flair for drama, stood up and said he disagreed. There had been other expeditions on Everest with a good leader but they had failed. There had been other strong climbers but they too had failed. Success in 1953 was due to the work of one person, the unsung hero of Everest – Dr Griffith Pugh.25

  There might have been a shrugging of shoulders – there goes old Mike again – but for one member of the audience, this strongly expressed opinion opened a door she had not known was there. This was Pugh’s 46-year-old daughter, Harriet Tuckey. Griff had been a distant and awkward father, as she describes with disconcerting honesty in the biography she published 20 years later. She called it Everest, The First Ascent: The Untold Story of Griffith Pugh, The Man Who Made it Possible. It is a moving account of a daughter’s discovery of her father. Mike Ward told her ‘how Pugh had designed the all-important oxygen and fluid-intake regimes, the acclimatization programme, the diet, the high-altitude boots, the tents, the down clothing, the mountain stoves, the airbeds’.26 Yet Hunt, in The Ascent of Everest, written within a mere month of arriving back from the expedition, had bestowed his acknowledgments much more widely. Tom Bourdillon wrote Appendix V on oxygen equipment. His last paragraph noted: ‘A very large number of people and organisations contributed to the development and production apparatus for this expedition’, and Appendix IX listed 19 suppliers and developers. The 10-page Appendix VII on physiology and medicine was written by Pugh and Ward, and Appendix VI on diet by Pugh and Band. H.W. Tilman commented unsympathetically in a review that he had found all the appendices very interesting except for the two ‘irksome’ articles by Pugh which were notable only for their ‘questionable assumptions, platitudes and complacency’.27 There they were, at it again, a mountaineer – admittedly a famously anti-s
cience mountaineer – belittling scientists!

  On his return from Cho Oyu, Pugh wrote a report for the Medical Research Council. Ward described it as ‘this seminal report’. It was, he wrote, ‘one of the most important in the history of scientific, high-altitude exploration. It formed the medical and scientific basis for the 1953 expedition and determined its “shape”… a scientific approach to the problems posed by the last 1000 feet, was fundamental to our success.’28

  But here was another puzzle: it was never published. It ‘had a very restricted circulation. All this scientific work was really separate from the mountaineers – and a good thing too!’ wrote Ward.29 Why restricted? Why not published? Publication is the currency in which scientists receive their recognition.

  I began a search for this rare document. Requests went unacknowledged until at length I found that the original was in the Mandeville Special Collection of the University of California, San Diego, into which the papers of Griffith Pugh had been placed by Professor John West. A modest fee of $58 and I had my copy of the 1952 report.30

  To say that it was an anticlimax is an understatement. I read it, turned it over, went back to the beginning – where was the content that made this ‘seminal’ report ‘one of the most important in the history of scientific, high-altitude exploration’?

  In the Discussion section of his report, Pugh talks only of the last thousand feet on Everest from a high camp at 27,600ft. ‘Use oxygen at a flow rate of 4 L/min,’ he advised. The big questions were not answered, or even asked:

  At what height should the climbers start using oxygen?

  Should they use sleeping oxygen, and if so from what height?

  Should flow rates other than 4 L/min. be made available?

  Should Sherpas use oxygen as well as Europeans?

  The main reason for earlier failures on Everest was that pre-war climbers hadn’t used oxygen at all. The most important decision for 1953 had already been made before Cho Oyu: that the expedition would use oxygen in whatever way might be necessary to place a climber on top of Everest. Discussion on when the oxygen would be used, by whom, how much, and whether open or closed circuit, would intensively occupy various engineers, scientists, technical designers and climbers back in England. Griff Pugh would be a significant contributor but was only one among others. During the expedition, logistics were all-important. One-and-a-quarter tons of oxygen had to be moved to nine camps. Of the weight carried to high Camps 8 and 9, 63 per cent was oxygen.

  Can any single person be called ‘the man who made it possible’? John Hunt used to emphasise that the climbing of Everest had been a team effort, and that the ‘team’ included the expeditions from the 1920s and ’30s, as well as the Swiss in 1952. Was Hillary the man who made it possible? Probably not. Had the siren song of the closed-circuit apparatus been ignored and the whole effort gone into the open circuit, Tom Bourdillon – and others – would have been strong contenders for a summit position. What about Tenzing? He led the Sherpas on the mountain, inspired the all-important carry of 13 loads to the South Col, and had the skill and stamina to reach the summit.

  But if I were pressed into the invidious position of naming a single person as ‘the man who made it possible’, I cannot see how it could be anyone except John Hunt.

  Everest after ’53

  The decade of the 1950s saw an expensive international race to climb the world’s highest mountains, with first ascents of the 11 highest of the 14 peaks above the magic height of 26,000ft. The climb of Everest had broken through a psychological ceiling, but the invasion of the Himalayas would have happened anyway in the post-war world where people were looking for more acceptable forms of excitement. Oxygen, with its attendant high costs and many porters, was used in the first ascent of all five peaks above 27,000ft, but often not on those below. Equipment and techniques improved dramatically. Plastic, vapour-barrier boots, all-weather clothing and new bivouac equipment allowed climbers to survive nights out at high altitude that would have led to death or severe frostbite in the 1920s. Climbers advanced up steep rock or ice walls by fixing a line of ropes up which they jumared to where they had left off the day before.

  A new breed of climber emerged, hardened and acclimatised to high altitude by experience accumulated year upon year in the Himalayas. They climbed the big faces and ridges of Everest and all the highest peaks. They made winter ascents for the first time, sometimes solo. They learned how to recognise and work at the boundary between acclimatisation and deterioration. They came from all parts of the world in pairs or small groups who shared resources and worked together from time to time. Where oxygen was used, it was usually only for the final push to the summit of a very high mountain. They had a fearsome mortality rate, but achieved feats of climbing that were regarded as impossible in the 1950s.

  After 1990 came the development of commercial, guided expeditions which gave anyone the opportunity to reach the top of Everest. You have to be fit, masochistic, have an alpha-type personality, and be prepared to pay around $70,000, but serious climbing experience is not a prerequisite. The general scheme is that you settle into Base Camp where you acclimatise to 17,000ft before setting out on at least two training climbs up the icefall and Western Cwm, partly for acclimatisation, and partly to allow the guides to assess your strength, acclimatisation and skills to get to the summit without endangering either yourself or your minders. If you fail to convince, your expedition is over. But if you pass the assessment, you join several hundred others waiting at Base Camp for forecasters in the US, UK or elsewhere to announce the dates of a window of fine weather. Meanwhile teams of Sherpas have opened the route, fixed ropes up much of its length, and established camps equipped with tents, food, fuel and oxygen. They also have teams of porters clearing rubbish to out-of-the-way sites amongst the moraine debris lower down.

  With the confirmation of the date of arrival of the good weather, there is a mass exodus up the mountain. From the Lhotse Face to the summit, open-circuit oxygen is used at flow rates varying between 2 and 4 L/min. The summit climb starts at midnight from the South Col. In a vintage year, over 600 people have climbed the mountain. In bad years, there are accidents such as the avalanche from the overhanging ice on the south-west face that killed 16 Sherpas in 2014, or the earthquake-triggered ice avalanche that killed 19 in 2015 and injured nearly 100.

  There are many who deplore these commercial ventures, but it’s not easy to frame acceptable rules. Guides have always been part of mountaineering. The Nepali government likes the income generated by expeditions. Sherpas want the work because they earn enough in three months to support themselves and their families for the rest of the year. Insisting on measurable skills in climbers is fraught with problems. A host of armchair mountaineers around the world enjoy the gladiatorial aspects of the sport. Let battle commence.

  – CHAPTER 16 –

  ‘The most sensible action I’ve ever taken’

  At dawn on 2 June 1953, the one million people lining the streets of London to see the Coronation procession heard that the British had climbed Everest. Back in a much quieter Auckland, a young reporter, Pat Booth, was telling Percy and Gertrude Hillary at 730 Remuera Road that it was their son and Tenzing Norgay who had made the historic ascent.

  Coming to the door, Gertrude expressed first astonishment, then absolute delight. She called up the stairs, ‘Perce, come quickly. Edmund is at the top!’

  Percy came down but showed less excitement. ‘Edmund is a good man under pressure,’ he said. ‘He always carries his weight.’

  Would Edmund, Booth asked, find it hard to come back after all that had happened?

  Percy shook his head. ‘He’s a very hard worker with the bees. I’m sure he’ll be glad to get back to it.’1

  The more effusive public announcement by Acting Prime Minister Keith Holyoake neatly set New Zealand in its place in respect of the Mother Country:

  I am able to announce that a newsflash has just come through advising us that the New Zealan
der, Hillary, has succeeded in conquering Mount Everest … If this news is correct, and I’m absolutely assured it is, then our New Zealander Hillary has climbed to the top of the world. He has put the British race and New Zealand on top of the world. And what a magnificent coronation present for the Queen. How proud we all are that this is from our loyal little New Zealand.2

  One of the earliest personal letters of congratulation came from Eric Shipton, who may have been sidelined for the leadership but knew it was his intuitive acceptance of two New Zealand climbers in 1951 that had secured for Ed Hillary a place in 1953:

  My dear Ed, What a wonderful climax to the Everest story. The London newspapers started ringing me at about midnight on Monday and continued most of the night. I was absolutely thrilled when I found it was you who got there first, though I knew it would be you if anyone. You most certainly deserve it and I could not be more delighted. Now you will just have to come to England to tell us all about it and I shall expect an early visit from you. I spend most of my time just now in a day-dream picturing you and Tensing making your way along that last narrow ridge (droning ‘Home on the Range’ as you went) and then the colossal moment of getting there – it makes my heart thump just thinking about it. I had a wire … from Longstaff saying ‘How right you were to back N.Z.’ … We are all so delighted that Tensing was there with you, representing the Sherpas – no-one could have wished for a better combination … Again with my delighted and heartfelt congratulations on a really superb effort.