Letters From Everest Read online

  We also have an ordinary receiving set with which to receive the weather broadcasts from B.B.C. and All India Radio during May. We have had this set at Base Camp and each night we listen to Ceylon and get an English programme. Last night it was Hawaiian, then light Opera and a Tommy Dorsey programme. The Sherpas all come into our tent and listen with big grins and we join in the songs we know and throw off at their commercial advertising. At 7.30 we usually switch to Moscow and hear their version of the world news.

  I’m cook tonight and soon I’ll have to set the primus roaring to hot up the stewed steak (tinned) and peas – with packeted asparagus soup – followed by tinned fruit cake and coffee. It sounds good but up here it doesn’t cook anything like sea-level and we are starting to talk of home cooking.

  In a day or two we hope to get our first mail delivery and we’re all hanging back on letters waiting for this delivery – which will be our first for over 6 weeks.

  More anon, George.

  Lake Camp

  19th April 1953

  Although stony, windy and dusty, Lake Camp is at present a warm paradise with a ring of wonderful mountain scenery. The avalanches are just occasional rumbles and now that the first mail delivery has arrived the world is a peaceful, pleasant place. Two days ago it wasn’t! The 17th April (isn’t that Dad’s birthday?) was a nerve-wracking day – the day that Ed, George Band and I reccied the top section of the Khumbu icefall and finally peeped into the Cwm.

  The night had been very gusty and the morning was bleak with cloud around Pumori, Lingtren, Nuptse and Everest. The wind blew at different velocities at different levels. It was most noisy over the Lho La, which was five hundred feet above us. The speed there was terrific and it moaned and surged just as if surf. We wirelessed to Base to say we were setting out and left at 8.15, heavily clothed and all tastefully covered in royal blue windproof suits. Our spirits were high and apart from a few heart-in-the-mouth moments we stayed on top all day.

  The view upwards from Camp II was not reassuring – a mass of blocks, debris and seracs, standing amongst a good thousand feet of twisted icefall. None of us had done anything like this before and we knew we’d be impressed. We spent 4 hours getting through most of it, winding over, through and round a great cemetery of rubble. At one time we wound too far to the right and stopped under great cliffs hanging off Nuptse. A long traverse left and we finished under a 60 ft barrier that cut us from the easier slopes leading into the Cwm.

  We pushed sideways through a deep cleft that felt like sneaking through the jaws of a clam. The two walls tilted inwards and one, although a 30 foot chunk, did not feel too stable. Finally after much inspection and searching we found a way onto the great block with the vertical walls. Ed led this magnificently – first up a face, then a 30 foot diagonal ice crack which finished in an overhang – but with a lot of grunting and scratching with his crampons he got inside and wriggled up and over the last 9 feet and there we were looking into the Cwm, but with still another 60 foot block to get up. The wind here was terrific – we were above the Lho La level and when the big gusts roared we just had to whack the axe in and crouch down. Both George and I were pretty tired by this time, although Ed seemed inexhaustible. We returned to camp, rushing the most dangerous bits and occasionally pointing out to each other a Swiss flag – left waving, torn and faded on the bamboo wands that they placed to mark out their Autumn route. The continuity of their route is quite gone – here and there on an inaccessible block with 40 foot walls all around is a Swiss flag like a surrealist’s dream of a golf course. We too are marking our route with bamboo wands and flags – the Swiss flags were maroon and advertised ‘Bally Boots’ – ours are plain yellow and orange squares.

  Just before we reached Camp II, John Hunt came up with a Sherpa to get a first hand impression of our route. He was very impressed with our efforts and we enjoyed the pat on the back. We all descended to Camp I and then yesterday to Lake Camp for a couple of days rest. The mail had arrived, and we fell on it desperately. We swapped news until late in the night and even at 2 a.m. I was tossing and staring at the tent roof thinking over the news in the letters, too excited to sleep after the big day on the icefall. I noticed, too, that Ed on one side and George Band on the other were lying sleepless too. The 17th April had been quite a day.

  Tomorrow Ed, George Band and I are setting out for Camp II again to flag and cut the most likely route through to Camp III on top of the last great block. For the last block we are going to fix a 35 foot rope-ladder. While we’re doing this, others will be improving the route to Camp II with wooden logs and aluminium ladders across the worst sections (especially ‘Hillary’s Horror’ and ‘Hell Fire Alley’) and then about 26th April the long and tedious business of load-carrying begins. All trips through the icefall will have to be escorted by one of the European party – I am in the first High Altitude team to relay loads from Camp III to IV and then to V at the foot of the Lhotse Face. Wilf Noyce is my companion, while six others with 21 Sherpas relay from Camp I through the icefall to Camp III. Ed, John Hunt and Charles Evans are going ahead then to reccy up the Lhotse Face.

  The assault oxygen – 57 bottles in light alloy – has just arrived in Thyangboche by special delivery from England and will be here for packing up in 3 or 4 days. These bottles were left till the last possible moment to ensure that they arrived with the maximum pressure. With 1,600 litres at 3,300 atmospheres pressure leaks are very difficult to avoid. With the first lot that we used in practise and training – held in the usual R.A.F. cylinders – the loss through leakage en route was nearly one third. If that happens to the assault bottles it will be a major disaster.

  Guess that’s all – the next two weeks I shall be high in the Cwm and probably letter writing will be at a minimum.

  Cheers, George.

  Base Camp

  25th April 1953

  Dear Betty,

  This just contains odds and ends. Some stamps from odd countries; a cutting from a London paper – a rival of the ‘Times’. Here is quite a story :– The ‘Times’ have a copyright of all the news we send them, but there’s no rules about news if the rival paper sends a special correspondent and that is what the ‘Daily Telegraph’ did. A Ralph Izzard came specially to Katmandu to pirate the story which he did most successfully. At Badgaon – where we collected our 300 coolies and left on the march he snooped around with his camera and several stooges who found out all they could. He printed a story about Tenzing – our sirdar – which made everybody mad.

  The outcome was that he beat the ‘Times’ to the story and pictures of the expedition departure and now the ‘Times’ have flown out a special correspondent who has just arrived here at Base Camp – but not before Izzard – who with commendable enterprise got permission to enter Nepal and in light boots and very little gear arrived at Base camp a week ago. Here he took photographs and snooped around – saw our wireless sets and headed off with his story and the intention to get a powerful wireless so that he can tap our mountain messages and wireless them ahead of the ‘Times’ to London. To counter this the ‘Times’ have devised a code name for all of us and all our camps have code names which we use when wirelessing. Real cloak and dagger stuff. It’s amusing to us – but dead serious for the correspondents.

  We are all on the side of the ‘Times’, but even when we send them outstanding photographs they don’t print them – which annoys us somewhat.

  On 12 April, George and Ed found the site for Base Camp, surrounded by huge pinnacles of Khumbu glacier ice. Within 10 days the whole expedition’s stores and equipment were here.

  George Band leads a Sherpa team through the icefall ferrying stores up the mountain.

  After another exhausting day on the icefall, Ed enjoys a New Zealand newspaper that was sent to George with a bundle of letters from home.

  These photographs include one of Ed who was turning round belligerently to say “If you don’t get the hell out of here I’ll kick your backside!” and there Izzard sna
pped him.

  The third enclosure is a piece of brown paper that rolled the ‘Weekly News’ – thanks for the Weekly it was very popular with everybody and it was very homely I thought. Took me right back home. A scribbled advertisement of Dads arriving all the way on Everest – so I’ll send it home just for the ride.

  George Band is just calling up Camps II and III on the walkie-talkie at our 8 a.m. call and I have to pay the mail-runner and send him off on his month’s round trip to Katmandu.

  Today and for the next 2 weeks we are packing stores up to Camp IV – advanced base on Everest at 23,000 ft. After that, expect an attempt any time.

  Cheers, George.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Base Camp

  29th April 1953

  Dear Folks,

  After the bout of sickness I’ve recovered rapidly and have been on the ‘bus run’ up to Camp III with a train of Sherpas carrying loads. While I was on the sick list here (4 days) I was packing high altitude rations and then one day the yak arrived. We had ordered a yak (cost 120 rupees) to be driven up the glacier and killed at base camp. It was a shock to me when the yak arrived to be named expedition butcher and asked to do the deed. A yak!

  None of the Sherpas would kill it and so we produced a .22 rifle and I sharpened a pocket knife, a sheath knife of Tom Stobart’s and a kukri. Then armed to the teeth and with George Band holding the yak on a 30 ft rope we went to the kill. The yak guessed some evil and began to perform. George B. did a smart circle round an ice tower and hung on but the yak snapped this off and then the glacier took on the look of a rodeo. I planted the knives and began to stalk – avoiding getting a watching Sherpa – or cavorting George and Tom S. who was shouting directions from a distance (he has filmed big game hunting in Kenya!) – these people were in imminent danger of death. I crept in close and put a shot between the ear and eye and then waited for the yak to drop dead.

  Not a bit. It began bleeding from the mouth and with a baleful look charged at me. I dropped the gun and leapt to the rope with George and together we circled an ice tower and tried to tie the beast up short and cut its throat. As we wrapped the rope round the tower the yak followed and we raised yells of encouragement as we ran round and round. Then the yak gave a heave and so did we – and the ice tower broke. Then the fun really began. We headed off for another tower and the yak followed and we dodged and leapt scything down a whole forest of four foot pinnacles. Tom S. planted a hasty shot between us and into the yak’s neck and the fun began again. Finally, we anchored round a big tower and the yak tired and I grabbed the rifle and from 15 yards or so put a shot near the eye and the poor beast dropped like a log. The Sherpas were up hill – at a safe distance – clicking their tongues at the inexperience and cruel handling done by the sahibs while George B. with torn hands and Tom S. still from a safe distance panted with me after the kill. We didn’t feel very pleased with our efforts but without more ado cut the poor yak’s throat and with inadequate tools set about skinning it. This was quite a smooth job and in 2 hours we had a gutted carcase and with a kukri cut it into legs, necks, steaks and the usual butchers shapes and hung it in an ice cave. There was only 200 lbs. of meat in the carcase – which is surprising considering a yak is as big as a small cow. In five days we have nearly finished the whole thing. We’ve had liver, brains, kidneys, heart (stuffed) and now the muscle meat, which even after 40 minutes in the pressure cooker is tough.

  Next meat order is five sheep instead of a yak (sheep is 23 rupees – rupee = 1/6) and I’m the local butcher. When I get home I am going to take a few more lessons from Dad – real ones instead of just watching – and I’m hoping to have something better than a 3 bob pocket knife and a piece of stone for a steel.

  Tomorrow Ed and I are to take the Sherpa team on the two-day carry to Camp III. For the past 10 days Sherpas – escorted by sahibs (that’s us!) have been making daily carries up the icefall to Camp III where another team is busy carrying loads on to Camp IV at 22,000 feet in the Western Cwm.

  Tomorrow I’ll try and give you an impression of the carry to Camp II and III. I’ve been up several times now and the trip is just a grind now that the route is made easy. I told you of our first trips up the icefall and how difficult it was. Now with wooden poles across the worst crevasses and fixed ropes to swing up and down the ice cliffs, a duralium bridge across the worst crevasse and a 35 ft rope ladder up the final ice-wall (which we climbed by a difficult ice-crack) the route now assumes a steady crampon plod up 2,000 feet of icefall winding in and out among towers and seracs following a line of 90 marker flags.

  Still the route is not without daily serac falls, the odd Sherpa falling through a bridge and saved by the rope – the noticeable widening of some cracks and the subsidence of one section we call the ‘atom bomb’ area. We have names for all the tricky bits – ‘Hillary’s Horror’ is now bridged and has a fixed rope up the ice cliff – after that comes the ‘hell-fire alley’ then ‘atom bomb’, ‘jump crevasse’ and Camp II. Above Camp II is ‘ledge ice cliff’ ‘bloody crevasse’, ‘boulder alley’, ‘the nut-cracker’, ‘the ladder’ and Camp III.

  Camp III is about 20,000 feet on top of the last great blocks of ice at the top of the icefall. After that you cross a big 16 ft bridge (duralium) and wind along a level crevassed glacier for three miles to Camp IV, 22,000 ft near the Lhotse Face.

  In three days time the most crucial tests of all will be made. Charles Evans, Tom Bourdillon, Charles Wylie and Mike Westmacott will be setting off for Camp IV with oxygen sets – both closed circuit and open circuit – to attempt the Lhotse Face and place Camps V and VI, and try to reach South Col on oxygen.

  The Lhotse Face looks icy and is our next big problem and the big test is – how will the closed and open circuit go at high altitude? If the closed circuit works it will be an absolute winner – it enables the climber to go at nearly sea level pace and for 12 hours (we hope) without great fatigue. If this is so a really strong attempt will be able to be put in. The open circuit is not so useful at high altitudes as the higher you go the less efficient it becomes. On this test on the Lhotse Face (25,000 ft) the planning of the final assault rests. We are all looking forward to some definite conclusions on this oxygen question. We have a feeling that these four might well be a ‘sacrificial party’. The effort they put in in testing the apparatus may well exhaust them and prevent them from being effective in the final assault. Whatever happens – nearly everyone will be needed for the final lift of stores as high as we can get for the launching of the final team. A ridge camp (at 27,500 or 28,000?) is still planned and this will burn out two or three of us as well.

  The first tent at Camp III was established on 22 April at the entrance to the Western Cwm. Westmacott looks up towards the formidable Lhotse Face.

  The icefall was a frozen cascade of giant ice blocks, constantly moving and changing, pouring in waves towards Base Camp.

  Still the final assault plan is still in the melting pot. Naturally we all hope to be one of the final pair, but realise that can’t be so. Still I hope I’m fit enough to get to the South Col or above and I’ll feel I’ve done my bit.

  We’re hoping for another mail-runner tomorrow or the next day and when the runner arrives Base Camp takes on a gala air and everyone is full of home spirits. This is a wonderfully happy party – due mainly to the generalship of John Hunt who contrives to keep everyone busy and pushing together for the top in a solid bunch. He is a wonderful leader. All the boys are excellent types, easy to get along with and most useful anywhere on a mountain.

  I’ve got a strong feeling that if the weather is slightly kind this will be the last and successful Everest Expedition.

  More anon, George.

  Rest Camp

  4th May 1953

  You’ll excuse this miserly use of paper I hope! On 1st May three of us established this camp three hours below the Base Camp (which is on a moraine patch on the ice at the foot of the icefall) and here, at a place the locals call Loje, we h
ave a tent on the grass and there are a few tiny flowers growing in the shelter of a rock. These flowers are brave and persistent because each day (even here at 16,500 ft) for the past 23 days we have had afternoon snowfalls and odd thunder-showers that cover the ground with hail stones. This is the season of “Westerly Disturbances” which precede the monsoon and they have been so persistent that since the 13th April we have had snow every afternoon. This snow is making the work above Camp III very tedious and heart-breaking. Every day the wind and snow fills the tracks which have to be remade.

  Yesterday Ed come down here with Mike Westmacott. Ed had news of the closed circuit oxygen and his test run on open circuit.

  On 30th April John Hunt, Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon went up to Camp IV on closed circuit to place Camps V and VI and try to get to South Col and test the closed circuit. Mike Ward (the doctor) and Charles Wylie went up on open circuit to back up.

  On 2nd May Ed and Tenzing did a run on open circuit from Base to Camp IV to see if this gave them any real benefit. Ed arrived here yesterday and reported that the open circuit was “bloody marvellous”. They went to Camp IV and back from Base in the day and arrived tired but not exhausted as anyone would on no oxygen. Their times. They left:

  6.30 from Base 18,000 ft.

  8.00 at Camp II 19,500 ft.

  8.50 at Camp III 20,500 ft.

  10.50 at Camp IV 22,000+ ft.

  This is a terrific set of times as normally we go to:

  Camp II the first day in 3 hours and rest