by Michael Gill
Chapter 15 ‘We were on top of Everest!’
1. Hillary diary, 29 May 1953, MHF, box 44. The full text reads, ‘Finally I cut around the back of an extra large hump and then on a tight rope to its top. Immediately it was obvious that we had reached our objective. We were on top of Everest!’
2. Hunt, The Ascent of Everest, 1953, p. 74.
3. Bourdillon, T., Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Vol. 143, 1954, p. 28.
4. Closed-circuit systems have never been effectively developed for high-altitude climbing. The oxygen used by climbers on modern commercial expeditions is always delivered by an open-circuit apparatus.
5. Noyce, South Col, 1954, p. 25.
6. Everest diary, 7 May 1953, MHF, box 44.
7. Morris, Coronation Everest, 1958, p. 84.
8. On his second visit to the Himalayas two years later, Band made the first ascent of Kangchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain.
9. Ward, In This Short Span, 1972, p. 133. The reason was probably that 23,000–24,000ft was Mike’s altitude ceiling. In 1961 he led the first ascent of Ama Dablam, a much more difficult peak but also, at 22,500ft, significantly lower. At 24,400ft on Makalu Col in 1961, he lapsed into a coma with cerebral edema.
10. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, pp. 154–55.
11. Michael Ward diary, quoted in Conefrey, Everest 1953, 2012, p. 169.
12. Ward, In This Short Span, 1972, p. 133.
13. Noyce, South Col, 1954, p. 185.
14. Ibid., p. 195.
15. Lowe, Because It Is There, 1949, p. 35.
16. Ward, In This Short Span, 1972, p. 124.
17. Hillary, High Adventure, 1955, p. 210.
18. Stobart, Adventurer’s Eye, 1958, pp. 236–37.
19. Ibid.
20. Morris, Coronation Everest, 1958, pp. 135–36.
21. Ullman, Man of Everest, 1955, p. 268.
22. Ward, In This Short Span, 1972, p. 95.
23. Hunt, The Ascent of Everest, 1953, p. 228.
24. Ward, In This Short Span, 1972, p. 91.
25. Tuckey, Everest, The First Ascent, 2013, p. xix.
26. Ibid., p. xx.
27. Tilman, H.W., review in Time and Tide, quoted in Tuckey, Everest, The First Ascent, 2013, p. 155.
28. Ward, Everest, A Thousand Years of Exploration, 2013, p. 229.
29. Letter Ward to Unsworth, 30 July 1978, quoted in Unsworth, Everest, 1989, p. 297.
30. Pugh, British Expedition to Cho Oyu, 1952.
Chapter 16 ‘The most sensible action I’ve ever taken’
1. Booth, Edmund Hillary, 1993, pp. 14–16.
2. Little, After Everest, 2012, p. 36.
3. MHF, box 40, fdr 620.
4. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 164.
5. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 28.
6. MHF, box 3, fdr 65.
7. MHF, box 2, fdr 38.
8. Gummer, in Tribute to Louise Rose, December 1990, Hillary Family Collection.
9. Ibid.
10. MHF, box 1, fdr 17.
11. Ibid.
12. Three letters in MHF, box 35, fdr 559.
13. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 29.
14. MHF, box 35, fdr 559.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. MHF, box 40, fdr 620.
18. MHF, box 35, fdr 559.
19. Ibid.
20. MHF, box 40, fdr 620.
21. MHF, box 35, fdr 559.
22. Hillary, 1975, Nothing Venture, p. 167.
23. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 31.
24. MHF, box 35, fdr 559.
25. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 32.
26. Ibid.
27. Hillary Family Collection.
28. Lowe, Because It Is There, 1959, p. 42.
Chapter 17 ‘A somewhat disastrous journey’ into the Barun Valley
1. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 118.
2. Letter Charles Evans to Louise Hillary, 6 April 1954, MHF, box 23, fdr 369.
3. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 119.
4. Ibid., p. 121.
5. Ibid.
6. Most people will develop symptoms of high-altitude sickness if they go too high too quickly. Symptoms include headache, insomnia and loss of appetite, and in the benign form, termed AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), these symptoms resolve as the individual acclimatises. The malignant forms, which are often fatal if untreated, are termed HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema) and HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema). There are wide and unpredictable individual variations among those going to altitude. West et al., High Altitude Medicine and Physiology, 2013, is a recommended reference work.
7. Wilkins, Among Secret Beauties, 2013, p. 82.
Chapter 18 Employment opportunity in the Antarctic
1. Hillary Family Collection.
2. Ibid.
3. Wilkins, Among Secret Beauties, 2013, p. 69.
4. Quoted in Douglas, Tenzing, Hero of Everest, 2003, p. 245.
5. Hillary in Hunt, The Ascent of Everest, 1953, p. 204.
6. Tenzing in Ullman, Man of Everest, 1955, p. 265.
7. MHF, box 40, fdr 619.
8. Ibid.
9. Lowe, Because It Is There, 1959, p. 3. Lowe claims that he first introduced Ed to Fuchs in November 1954, whereas Ed puts the meeting in 1953. I have accepted 1953, though there is no mention of Fuchs or the Antarctic in his correspondence before late 1954. In The Crossing of Antarctica, Fuchs makes no mention of Hillary until he is appointed leader of the Ross Sea party in June 1955.
10. Ibid.
11. Hillary, No Latitude for Error, 1961, p. 13.
12. This outline is taken from Fuchs’s 1990 autobiography, A Time to Speak.
13. Quoted in Haddelsey, Shackleton’s Dream, 2012, p. 15.
14. Copy of Minutes of Polar Committee meeting, September 1953, Falla Papers, Alexander Turnbull Library.
15. MHF, box 45, fdr 689.
16. Ibid.
Chapter 19 Scott Base
1. Lowe, Because It Is There, 1959, p. 113.
2. Ibid., pp. 159–60.
3. Fuchs, A Time to Speak, 1990, p. 221.
4. During 1957–58 there were four stations along this coast: the British Royal Society IGY station at Halley Bay supported by the vessel Tottan; Fuchs’s TAE station at Vahsel Bay; the Argentinian General Belgrano station on the Filchner Ice Shelf supported by the San Martin; and the American IGY station Ellsworth, also on the Filchner.
5. Fuchs’s journal quoted in Stephenson, Crevasse Roulette, 2009, p. 26.
6. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 129.
7. MHF, box 21, fdr 338.
8. McKenzie, Opposite Poles, 1963, p. 103.
9. 10 January 1957, MHF, box 2, fdr 56.
10. In the Antarctic chapters, distances are given in miles because they were the units of distance in 1957–58, and the naming of depots reflected this. Depots were called D280, D480 and D700 to indicate their distance in miles from Scott Base.
11. Gunn, Land of the Long Day, 2007, Ch. 2.
12. MHF, box 21, fdr 336.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Gunn, Land of the Long Day, 2007, Ch. 15. Bernie Gunn had a good four months on the Northern Survey, but when he returned to the Antarctic a year later he had an accident of the kind that illustrates the potentially lethal nature of Antarctic crevasses. Three of the party were in a Sno-Cat on what seemed to be safe snow when suddenly they were falling into an immensely deep crevasse. The driver was killed immediately but Bernie and his fellow geologist Jim Loweri survived, though with injuries and frostbite that kept them in hospital for months.
16. Ibid., Ch. 5.
17. Hillary diary, 31 October 1957, MHF, box 21, fdr 327.
Chapter 20 ‘Hellbent for the Pole’
1. Lister’s diary, 22 November 1957, quoted in Haddelsey, Shackleton’s Dream, 2012, p. 129.
2. Lowe, Because It Is There, 1959, pp. 105–06
.
3. Hillary, No Latitude for Error, 1961, p. 122.
4. Ibid., p. 137.
5. Letter, 8 November 1957, MHF, box 21, fdr 336.
6. Ibid., 7 November 1957.
7. Ibid., 2 November 1957.
8. Letter Bowden to Hillary, 22 May 1957.
9. Hillary, No Latitude for Error, 1961, p. 156.
10. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 162.
11. Letter, 1 December 1957, MHF, box 21, fdr 336.
12. Hillary, No Latitude for Error, 1961, p. 171.
13. Ibid, p. 172.
14. Ibid, p. 186.
15. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 173.
16. Barber, The White Desert, 1958, p. 90.
17. Diary, 18 December 1957, MHF, box 21, fdr 336.
18. Hillary, No Latitude for Error, 1961, p. 191.
19. Fuchs, The Crossing of Antarctica, 1958, p. 239.
20. Stephenson, Crevasse Roulette, 2009, p. 104.
21. Fuchs diary, 19 December 1957, quoted in Haddelsey, Shackleton’s Dream, 2012, p. 204.
22. Personal communication, 1963.
23. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 211.
24. Hillary, No Latitude for Error, 1961, p. 194.
25. Ibid., p. 195.
26. Fuchs, The Crossing of Antarctica, 1958, p. 239.
27. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 176.
28. Diary, 23 December 1957, MHF, box 21, fdr 336.
29. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 177.
30. Hillary, No Latitude for Error, 1961, p. 205.
31. ‘… of fifty drums of fuel the New Zealand party placed in the depots, only twenty drums were actually used by Bunny’, Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 179.
32. Quoted in Haddelsey, Shackleton’s Dream, 2012, p. 204.
33. Hillary, No Latitude for Error, 1961, p. 206.
34. McKenzie, Opposite Poles, 1963, p. 103.
35. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 231.
36. Stephenson, Crevasse Roulette, 2009, p. 124.
37. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 177.
38. Fuchs, The Crossing of Antarctica, 1958, p. 248.
39. Ibid.
40. MHF, box 2, fdr 56.
41. Ibid.
42. MHF, box 21, fdr 336.
43. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 182.
Chapter 21 Beekeeper in search of a better-paying occupation
1. Letter Parry to Hillary, MHF, box 45, fdr 696.
2. Greenfield, A Smattering of Monsters, 1995, p. 145.
3. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 235.
4. Hillary, Two Generations, 1984, p. 19.
5. McKenzie, Opposite Poles, 1963, p. 176.
6. MHF, box 31, fdr 490.
7. Thomson, Climbing the Pole, 2010, p. 210.
8. Mac Vincent in the Auckland Star, 27 May 1961.
9. MHF, box 1, fdr 22.
10. Zealandia, 1 June 1961 in ibid.
11. Diary, 6 July 1958, MHF, box 24, fdr 383.
12. MHF, box 40, fdr 619.
13. Diary, 26 January 1958, MHF, box 21, fdr 328.
14. Letter, 25 June 1958, MHF, box 45, fdr 696.
15. Letter, 16 February 1959, MHF, box 43, fdr 667.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. This letter has been abbreviated.
21. Hillary to Dienhart, 19 September 1959, MHF, box 5, fdr 104.
22. MHF, box 5, fdr 104.
23. Letter, 14 October 1959, Sarah Hillary archive, box 4, fdr 83.
24. MHF, box 43, fdr 668.
Chapter 22 The Silver Hut expedition
1. Doig and Bhagat, Look Back in Wonder, 1995, pp. 259, 273.
2. Letter to Pugh, 18 August 1960, MHF, box 42, fdr 651.
3. Letter to Pugh, 14 September 1960, in ibid.
4. Hillary and Doig, High in the Thin Cold Air, 1962, p. 109.
5. Ibid., p. 120.
6. 13 September 1960, MHF, box 1, fdr 6.
7. Unattributed newspaper clipping, June 1961, MHF, box 1, fdr 12.
8. Perrin, Shipton and Tilman, 2013, pp. 379–87.
9. Ibid., p. 386.
10. Ibid., p. 387.
11. Snellgrove, Buddhist Himalaya, 1957, p. 294.
12. Morris, Coronation Everest, 1958, p. 116.
13. Stobart, Adventurer’s Eye, 1958, p. 213.
14. MHF, box 42, fdr 651.
15. Ibid.
16. Hillary diary, MHF, box 3, fdr 74.
17. Tuckey, Everest, The First Ascent, 2013, p. 352.
18. Hillary diary, 12 November 1960, MHF, box 3, fdr 74.
Chapter 23 Makalu unravels
1. MHF, box 42, fdr 651.
2. Letter, 29 December 1960, Hillary Family Collection.
3. Letter, 27 February 1961, in ibid.
4. MHF, box 1, fdr 4.
5. MHF, box 5, fdr 104.
6. Ibid.
7. Doig and Bhagat, Look Back in Wonder, 1995, p. 304.
8. MHF, box 5, fdr 130. Eight hundred rupees was the equivalent of US$80.
9. Undated letter, MHF, box 42, fdr 651.
10. Letter, 8 April 1961, Hillary Family Collection.
11. Letter, 25 April 1961, in ibid.
12. Franco, Makalu, 1957, p. 41.
13. Hillary diary, 4 May 1961, MHF, box 3, fdr 74.
14. Hillary diary, 7 May 1961, in ibid. In 1961 when altitude sickness was not well understood these symptoms were attributed to a stroke/cardiovascular accident. In retrospect, it can be seen that the symptoms and their time-course are consistent with cerebral hypoxia due to the cerebral and/or pulmonary edema that Ed had become prone to.
15. Franco, Makalu, 1957, p. 234.
16. Nevison diary, MHF, box 6, fdr 126.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ortenburger diary, MHF, box 3, fdr 81.
20. Ibid.
21. West, High Life, 1998.
Chapter 24 Three new careers
1. Diary, 9 May 1951, MHF, box 22, fdr 358.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., 14 May 1961.
4. Ibid., 26 May 1961.
5. Ibid., 16 June 1961.
6. Ed to Louise, 29 June 1961, Hillary Family Collection.
7. Ed to Louise, 30 June 1961, Hillary Family Collection.
8. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 253.
9. MHF, boxes 13–17, 35–38.
10. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 215.
11. Hillary, Louise, Keep Calm If You Can, 1963, pp. 9–11.
12. Ibid., p. 91.
13. Ibid., p. 159.
14. MHF, box 24, fdr 387.
15. Ed to Louise, 26 April 1965, Hillary Family Collection.
Chapter 25 Repaying a debt
1. Hillary, Schoolhouse in the Clouds, 1964, p. 3.
2. MHF, box 43, fdr 666.
3. Fisher, Sherpas, 1990, p. 100.
4. Hillary, Schoolhouse in the Clouds, 1964, p. 49.
5. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 263.
6. Hillary, Louise, A Yak for Christmas, 1968, p. 47.
7. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 295.
8. Hillary, Louise, A Yak for Christmas, 1968, pp. 28–33.
9. Their experiences are described in Gill and Cook, Himalayan Hospitals, 2011, based on letters written by the volunteers.
10. Hillary, Schoolhouse in the Clouds, 1964, p. 5.
11. Ibid., p. 135.
12. Ibid., pp. 23–24.
Chapter 26 The best decade of Ed’s life
1. Ed to author, personal communication.
2. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 252.
3. MHF, box 10, fdrs 194–198.
4. Ibid.
5. MHF, box 20, fdr 315.
6. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 285.
7. Hamilton, White Water, 1963.
8. Following quotations from MHF, box 23, fdr 370.
9. Great Barrier is a lar
ge island at the outer edge of Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf.
10. Hillary, Louise, High Time, 1973, pp. 185–86.
11. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 308.
Chapter 27 A plane crash ends two lives and blights another
1. Letter, 20 February 1975, Hillary Family Collection.
2. Letter, 12 March 1975, Hillary Family Collection.
3. Letters, 22–24 March 1975, Hillary Family Collection.
4. Letter, 5 April 1975, MHF, box 41, fdr 636.
5. Hillary and Hillary, Two Generations, 1984, p. 140.
6. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 240.
7. Gill and Cook, Himalayan Hospitals, 2011, p. 120.
8. Letter, 21 April 75, MHF, box 41, fdr 636.
9. Letter, 29 May 1975, in ibid.
10. Andrew Pollak in the Irish Times, 3 April 1975, MHF, box 24, fdr 385.
11. Maurice Wiggin in the Sunday Times, MHF, box 24, fdr 385.
12. Burnley Evening Star, MHF, box 24, fdr 385.
13. Letter, 9 October 1975, MHF, fdr 638.
14. Letter, 12 September 1975, MHF, fdr 638.
15. Hillary Family Collection.
Chapter 28 Killing time making films
1. Letter Ed to Jim, Murray, Graeme and Mike, 2 April 1976, MHF, box 40, fdr 626.
2. Ibid.
3. MHF, box 41, fdr 637.
4. Hillary diary, 1 October 1976, in ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Hillary diary, 2 October 1976, in ibid.
7. Hillary diary, 1 November 1976, in ibid.
8. Hillary diary, 2 November 1976, in ibid.
9. Hillary diary, 1 November 1976, in ibid.
10. MHF, box 41, fdr 637.
11. Hillary diary, 2 April 1976, MHF, box 41, fdr 637.
Chapter 29 Ocean to Sky, the last big expedition
1. MHF, box 46, fdr 708.
2. Hillary, From the Ocean to the Sky, 1979, p. 43.
3. Calcutta is the anglicisation of Kolkata, the name of the original village where the city was built. In 2001 the city returned to its original name. Since 1977 the population of Greater Kolkata has grown from 8 million to 15 million.
4. Darshan is to acquire merit by being in the presence of a holy person or someone who is making a great pilgrimage.
