Twenty-Nine Thousand and Eight Feet Up!

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 727, 19 June 1953, Page 6

Twenty-Nine Thousand and Eight Feet Up!

the New Zealander who recently stood on the highest extremity of the earth’s surface, must be one of the biggest men to win fame for a feat of prolonged physical endurance. At the limits of physical endeavour it has generally been the small men who have excelled — Nurmi, Lovelock, "Birdie" Bowers, for example, all travelled light. Hillary is lean, but broad-shouldered and six feet two. On the summit of Everest he must have stood a foot higher than his companion, the sturdy little hill-man Tensing. But if the pair bear little outward resemblance, they have other things in common. From his companions of other climbs we know that Hillary is one cf the most energetic of men, a dynamic, restless person who is never happy ‘o sit calmly and wait. And of the Sherpa Tensing we know that he shares the characteristics of all hill-men: he is courageous and resourceful and never misses an opportunity. Both men have the ‘ability to laugh which makes hardship endurable and boredom the occasion of a joke. S‘ EDMUND HILLARY, Hillary, with three previous expeditions behind him. was probably the most experienced European Hima!'ayan climber in the Everest party. Tensing, with experience gained during a series of Swiss expeditions to the central region of the Himalayas, is one of the three top Sherpas. Both men are in their thirties and have gained most of their climbing experience’ since the war. It will be Hillary’s task to tell the world’s mountaineers just what the final ice ridge of Everest is like. The Sherpas, a mountain people, were first employed as porters by the climber Dr. Kells Jate last century. They were drawn from the Sherpa colony at Darjeeling. Successive Himalayan expeditions employed them, but it was not till Shipton’s 1951 Everest Reconnaissance -_,

Expedition that Europeans gained admission to the Sherpas’ home countrythe Nepalese territory south of Everest. Buddhist in religion, the Sherpas are racially almost’ identical with Tibetans, but they have their own language, and, as several generations of mountaineers have testified, their own inimitable sense of numour. Several of those employed as porters have been inspired with the European passion for getting to the top, and there is little doubt that Tensing was no less enthusiastic than Hillary over the final subjugation of Everest. Hillary first gained Himalayan experience with the New Zealand expedition organised by H. E. Riddiford in 1951. George Lowe was also with this party, which succeeded in making a first ascent of the 23,760 ft. Mukut Parbat, as well as four other peaks over 20,000 ft. The head Sherpa on this occasion was Pasanglama, one of the three prominent

head Sherpas of whom Tensing is the youngest. Later, the New Zealander joined Shipton’s expedition which reconnoitred the south route up Everest. It was this route which was used by last year’s unsuccessful Swiss expedition; and by this year’s successful British one. Last year he was again in the Himalayas with the British expedition to Cho-Oyu. The climbers failed to reach the 26,850 ft. summit, but Hillary gained in fitness and in valuable experience from exploratory work done in the Everest region. For all his lean fitness and engaging grin, however, Hillary can look forbidding enough after months of living in rough clothes and rougher country. When descending into the more settled areas of Nepal after the 1951 New Zealand expedition he and his companions were taken for a troop of abominable snowmen. The populace fled.

Having now attained his greatest ambition, Edmund Hillary is not likely to rest on his ice-axe, The desire to be up and doing has made him while away a day of bad weather in the Southern Alps by fashioning a bow and arrows and shooting at keas. That desire is not likely to desert him now. Next year he is. expected to lead a New Zealand Alpine Club expedition to Everest’s neighbour,-the 27,850 ft. Makalu, fifthhighest mountain in the world. And after that, of course, there are mountains of lesser height which present greater ob. stacles to conquest by man. Such’ forbidding peaks as the Muztagh Tower, never climbed and perhaps never to be climbed, remain to stimulate the imagination of those who may fee] a little sad that the highest of them all has yielded. The Great Peaks |. VEREST is the highest of the world’s " great mountains, but not the last to be climbed, Godwin-Austen (28,259 ft.) and Kangchenjunga (28,146), Lhotse (27,890) and Makalu (27,790), the four next highest to Everest, are still unconquered, although Sir Edmund. Hillary will lead a New Zealand expedition to the last-named next year. The ascent of Everest is, however, the climax of many successful attempts at great peaks throughout the world,‘ for wherever mountains exist they have exérted. an irresistible fascination over men’s imaginations: The stories of these climbs, whether they have ended in success or failure; are tales of remarkable courage and endurance which. take a high place in the record of man’s indomitable oan to master the world he lives in. The record of high~ mountaineering, especially that of Everest, ison. the whole dominated: by British names, starting perhaps with Edward _Whymper’s ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. The highest mountain in Africa,’ Kilimanjaro (19,321) was climbed by Hans

Meyer, of Leipzig, in 1889. T. C. Fyfe and Peter’ and Jack Graham climbed Mount Cook. on Christmas: Day, 1894. In 1897 an expedition led by E. A: Fitzgerald and S. M. Vines climbed the highest mountain in "America, Aconcagua (22,830 feet) in the Argentine Andes. Hudson Stuck climbed Mount McKinley (20,300), the highest in North America, in 1913. In 1932, Richard L. Burdsal] and Terris Moore climbed Minya Konka (24,891) on the ChinaTibet border, a mountain which at one time was regarded as being higher than Everest. In 1950 the highest Himalayan ascent up to that time was made by the Frenchmen Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal to the top of Annapurna (26,493). All these are great stories, and there are many more. One of the first recorded ascents was that of the Alpine peak of Rochmelon, which was climbed by a _ medieval anchorite in fulfilment of a vow. In the 15th Century, Charles VIII of France ordered the ascent of Mont Aiguille "in order to destroy its reputation for inaccessibility." His comment sums up well the story of the battle of men against mountains. One of the less well-known climbs is that of Fitzgerald and Vines on Aconcagua, at the time the highest ever made, and from which one of the first detailed reports of the effects of altitude sickness was brought back. In his report to the Royal Geographical Society Fitzgerald said that at 18,700 feet "our pulses registered about 120 to 130 beats per minute, intermittent and flighty, while our blood-circulation was extremely bad." What followed he described in these words: We had been stopping for the last few days at our: highest camp and had suffered intensely from cold and want of sleep. On reaching this point (22,000 feet) I found that it was absolutely impossible for me to proceed further. As it was late in the afternoon, I sent Zurbriggen on at once to complete the ascent, although myself obliged to turn back. I had the greatest difficulty in crawling down; my knees were so weak that I repeatedly fell, cutting myself with the sharp stones that covered the mountainside. I crawled along in this miserable plight, steering for a big patch of snow. Here,

‘unable to stand any~ longer from sheer exhaustion, -I.was obliged to lie down and roll down the mountainside. As I got lower my strength returned; the increased pressure of the air seeming to act as a great stimulant. I returned to camp that night with one of the most. severe headaches I have ever in my life experienced. Zurbriggen arrived later on, and tage: that he had reached the summit . . The ascent was later repeated by Vines and Zurbriggen, who reported that on the highest slopes "the slightest rebuff sufficed to damp their spirits and give them an excuse to sit down and rest... they were continually falling on their hands and knees.’ These symptoms were to be experienced in greater degree by all those who later attempted Everest and other Himalayan peaks above 20,000 feet. It is of interest that before making their ascent of Aconcagua Fitzgerald and Zurbriggen had visited the New Zealand Alps, although they were forestalled by a few weeks in their desire to make the first ascent of Mount Cook. The Himalayas have always exerted the greatest fascination of all mountain ranges-2000 miles of mountains with innumerable summits exceeding 20,000 feet. According, to Frank Smythe, they "produce impressions of wonder and awe of such intensity as can be conjured up by no other range in any quarter of the globe." He goes on to say that "it must be a source of wonder to many that out of the 50 or 60 summits in the Himalayas exceeding 25,000 feet, only two, Nanda Devi and Kamet, have been reached, whilst Mount Everest, Kangchenjunga, K2 (Godwin-Austen) and Nanga Parbat remain inviolate despite the best endeavours of British, American, German, Austrian and French Mountaineers." Two disasters overtook German attempts to climb Nanga Parbat in 1936 and 1937. In the first many Germans and natives lost their lives in a storm before the higher camps had been properly established. In the second Dr. Karl Wien and his party were frustrated by an ice avalanche in which all but one in a party of eight with six Nepalese porters perished. In 1929 a German

party under Dr. Paul Bauer’ made an unsuccessful attempt on Kangchenjunga, and ‘in 1930 an international expedition led by Professor G. O. Dyhrenfurth met with failure and further loss of life. Kamet was conquered by Smythe in 1931, and Nanda Devi in 1936 by N._E. Odell; and H. W. Tillman. This last ascent, achieved after incredible difficulties; was regarded for long after as the greatest feat of Himalayan mountaineering ever accomplished. The New Zealand expedition to Makalu may or’ may not be successful, but it is accepted now that the Southern

Alps provide some of the best possible training for work in the Himalayas. Its members will do well to remember the words of one of the greatest mountaineers, Edward Whymper, conqueror of many mountains including Chimborazo, the first peak of over 20,000 feet scaled. "Climb if you will," he said, "but remember that courage and strength are naught without. prudence, and that a momentary negligence may. destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end."