Quest for Adventure

by Chris Bonington

  – Chapter 8 –

  The Challenge of Everest

  The first ascent, led by John Hunt, 1953

  From the south, Mount Everest (8,848 metres) resembles a medieval fortress, its triangular summit, the keep, guarded by the turreted walls of the outer bailey; Lhotse, fourth highest mountain in the world, is a massive corner tower linking the high curtain wall of Nuptse. The gateway to this fortress is the Khumbu Icefall, portcullised with séracs, moated with crevasses. Few mountain peaks are better guarded or have resisted so many assaults. There was no doubt concerning the whereabouts of the mountain or even of how to approach it from the south, as there had been in the case of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri, but there was a great deal of doubt as to whether it could be climbed from this direction.

  British climbers had reached the Lho La before the war and had seen the entrance to the Khumbu Icefall, but the way to the peak itself was barred by the outlying spurs of the West Ridge and the South-West Face. The first westerners to approach Everest from the south were Bill Tilman and Charles Houston, who had attempted Everest and K2, respectively, in 1938. As members of a small trekking party, for them it must have been like venturing into an incredible Aladdin’s cave of treasures, of unknown, unclimbed peaks, of unspoilt villages that were the homes of the Sherpa people, of turbulent glacier torrents, lush vegetation, high pastures, mani walls and prayer flags. It is hardly surprising that they took little more than a cursory glance at the approach to Everest, walking a short way up the Khumbu Glacier to peer round the shoulder of Nuptse into the Icefall and Western Cwm. They could only see the steep buttresses of the South-West Face of Everest, which appeared to reach the South Col; as a result, their report was discouraging.

  But even as they made their reconnaissance, a young, unknown climber of the post-war generation was also thinking of Everest. Mike Ward had started climbing in North Wales during the war, while still at school, had gone to Cambridge in 1943 to study medicine and climbed at every opportunity. With the end of the war, he was able to go out to the Alps. He had already shown himself to be a brilliant natural rock climber, and the thoroughness with which he researched and then pushed through his plans for a further Everest reconnaissance, despite Tilman’s unfavourable report, displayed his capacity as an organiser as well as a climber. Yet he was in the traditional mould of pre-war climbers, essentially amateur, knowing that however great his enthusiasm for climbing his career in medicine would always take priority.

  He realised he was short on big mountain experience and therefore invited Bill Murray, a Scot who had led an expedition to the Garhwal Himalaya the previous year and had climbed extensively in Scotland both before and after the war. Murray’s books Mountaineering in Scotland and Undiscovered Scotland have become climbing classics. The other member of the team was to be Tom Bourdillon, one of the most outstanding of all the post-war young climbers.

  Pre-war expeditions to Everest had been sponsored through an organisation called the Everest Committee, formed from members of both the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club. It was coming into existence once again, under the name of the Himalayan Committee, and was to play a very important role in the Everest expedition, but for the time being Mike Ward simply wanted its approval and blessing which, after some hesitation because of Tilman’s unfavourable reaction, was finally given.

  Only a short time before they were ready to depart, Eric Shipton came on to the scene. Undoubtedly Britain’s most eminent mountaineer at this time, he had established himself, with Tilman, as an outstanding mountain explorer, surveying and exploring the Himalaya with small, lightweight expeditions. Shipton was more mountain explorer than technical climber for whom reaching the top of a mountain was just part of the experience as a whole and not an end in itself. Of average height and build, with bushy eyebrows shielding piercing blue eyes, he seemed to gaze straight through you to some distant mountain range. There was also a slightly absent-minded distance in his manner, not cold or aloof, for he was essentially a kind man, but a distance born, perhaps, of shyness, a certain inhibition of emotion. He did not enjoy the hurly-burly of big expeditions, their politics and ponderous slow movement, but he had been unable to resist the lure of Everest and had taken part in four pre-war Everest expeditions. His books were an inspiration to countless youngsters, including myself, who were just starting to climb. During the war he was British Consul-General in Kashgar, in Sinkiang, and had gone on to Kunming in China, but this had ended with the victory of the Communist forces and he arrived back in Britain, not at all sure what to do next. He was promptly invited to lead the Reconnaissance expedition.

  Mike Ward and Bill Murray had already set out by sea when Shipton received a telegram from the President of the New Zealand Alpine Club, saying that four of his countrymen were climbing in the Garhwal Himalaya and asking if two of the could join the Everest Reconnaissance. Up to this point Shipton, who always favoured the smallest possible numbers, had resisted several applications to join the expedition, but on impulse, mainly because of good memories of climbing with New Zealander Dan Bryant on Everest in 1935, he accepted the proposal – even though it meant taking on two climbers whom none of them knew.

  This also gave the four New Zealanders a very real problem – which two of the four should accept this opportunity. Ed Hillary, a big, raw-boned beekeeper, was an obvious candidate. Although having only started climbing at the comparatively late age of twenty-six, his physique was superb and, on the expedition in the Garhwal, he had been outstandingly the strongest. The second place in the team was open to question, however. The leader of the party, Earle Riddiford, was determined to go, even though George Lowe, a primary school teacher who combined a rich sense of humour with a great deal of climbing ability and determination, felt that not only was he stronger, but also that he and Hillary made a particularly good team. Nonetheless, it was Riddiford and Hillary who joined Shipton.

  And so there were six climbers on the Everest Reconnaissance. They had a tough approach through the height of the monsoon from Jogbani in the south to reach the Upper Khumbu Valley on 29 September 1951. Bourdillon, Riddiford and Ward ventured into the Icefall, while Shipton and Hillary climbed a spur of Pumori to look into the Western Cwm. The view they got showed that Everest was undoubtedly climbable from the south, for they could now see right up the Cwm, the long easy slope of the Lhotse Face and the comparatively easy angle of the South-East Ridge leading down to the South Col. The way into the Western Cwm, however, lay through the daunting obstacle of the Khumbu Icefall.

  This Icefall descends about 800 metres, a maze of tottering ice towers and blocks, of crevasses and huge holes, all of it shifting under the relentless pressure from the glacier above, and threatened by avalanche from the steep slopes on either side. It has always been one of Everest’s major hazards. It was a particularly formidable barrier for the first men to set foot upon it, being considerably larger and more complex than any icefall they had experienced. The two New Zealanders were at some advantage since they had been climbing all summer and the icefalls of the New Zealand Alps are bigger and more difficult than anything in Europe.

  Their progress must be judged against this background. On their first attempt they got about three-quarters of the way up when they were hit by an avalanche and were lucky to escape without serious injury; they decided to leave the Icefall for a fortnight, in the hope of letting the snow settle. This also gave Shipton an opportunity to explore the mountains to the south of Everest, which I suspect he found much more intriguing than the challenge of the Icefall.

  Returning to the fray, on 19 October, they were undoubtedly shaken when a complete section, which had seemed fairly stable, collapsed during the night, leaving behind an area of chaotic debris. When, at last, they reached the top of the Icefall they found that the way into the Western Cwm was barred by a huge crevasse that stretched from wall to wall. This was the place where Camp 1 is usually situated. Now a long way above their last camp, they were tired, stretc
hed to the limit by the very level of the unknown, but the younger members of the team were keen to press on, while the older and more experienced decided that the risks were too high and they had seen enough. In retrospect, Shipton regretted this decision but, at the time, it seemed sensible. They had proved that Everest was feasible by this route.

  Unfortunately, however, the British had lost the opportunity to confirm it. The Himalayan Committee, perhaps over-confident that Everest was a ‘British’ mountain, had not applied for permission for 1952 in time. A Swiss expedition had got in first. There was some discussion about making it a Swiss-British effort under joint leadership, but this came to nothing. The Swiss were given first chance and they nearly made it, with what was really a very small expedition. Although the team numbered twelve, only six of them were hard climbers; the rest were scientists or had a support role such as doctor or cameraman.

  The Sherpa force numbered twenty, led by Tenzing Norkay, who had already gained a considerable reputation, not only as a sirdar, or foreman, of the Sherpas, but also as a climber in his own right. He was thirty-eight years old, tall and heavy by Sherpa standards, weighing over sixty-three kilograms. With his swept-back hair, strong, square-cut chin and broad smile, he had an almost European look which was reflected in his attitude to the mountains. Most of the Sherpas still regarded mountaineering purely as a job; Angtharkay, Herzog’s sirdar on Annapurna, whose experience was even greater than Tenzing’s, declined an invitation to go to the summit. His job was to supervise the efforts of the high-altitude porters and he saw no point in the struggle to reach the top. Tenzing, on the other hand, had the same driving ambition as a European climber to reach the summit. Already he had been to the top of Nanda Devi East with the French in 1951; he wanted to reach the summit of Everest in 1952. With Swiss climber Raymond Lambert, he got to within 250 metres, high upon the South-East Ridge, just 165 metres below the South Summit.

  The Swiss had shown the way to the top; almost all the route was known. Their failure to finish was partly the result of the comparative lightness of their assault, in the face of the huge gulf of the unknown that they had to penetrate, through the mysteries of the Western Cwm, the Lhotse Face and the final Summit Ridge; but, most of all, it was because the oxygen sets used by Lambert and Tenzing were ineffective, feeding them insufficient oxygen to compensate for the weight of the cylinders they were carrying. The sets were so primitive that they could use them only while resting, which meant having to carry the extra load of the oxygen bottles without getting any benefit from them while actually climbing. The Swiss did not give up; they made another attempt in the autumn, after the heavy snows of the monsoon, but the savage cold and high winds of the winter overtook them and they got no higher than the South Col.

  Meanwhile, the British had to sit it out, praying secretly that the Swiss would not succeed. This did at least give them more time to work on some of the specialised equipment, particularly oxygen systems which seemed a vital ingredient for success. A rather abortive expedition to Cho Oyu (8,153 metres) under Shipton’s leadership gave further altitude experience to some potential members of the next British attempt on Everest, which was now scheduled for 1953.

  It was generally assumed that Shipton would lead this attempt, but he himself had some doubts about the suitability of his temperament for such a role, as he confessed in his autobiography, That Untravelled World:

  ‘It was clear that the Committee assumed that I would lead the expedition. I had, however, given a good deal of thought to the matter, and felt it right to voice certain possible objections. Having been to Everest five times, I undoubtedly had a great deal more experience of the mountain and of climbing at extreme altitude than anyone else; also, in the past year I had been closely connected, practically and emotionally, with the new aspect of the venture. On the other hand, long involvement with an unsolved problem can easily produce rigidity of outlook, a slow response to new ideas, and it is often the case that a man with fewer inhibitions is better equipped to tackle it than one with greater experience. I had more reason than most to take a realistic view of the big element of luck involved, and this was not conducive to bounding optimism. Was it not time, perhaps, to hand over to a younger man with a fresh outlook; Moreover, Everest had become the focus of greatly inflated publicity and of keen international competition, and there were many who regarded success in the coming attempt to be of high national importance. My well-known dislike of large expeditions and my abhorrence of a competitive element in mountaineering might well seem out of place in the present situation.

  ‘I asked the Committee to consider these points very carefully before deciding the question of leadership and then left them while they did so.’

  The chairman, Claude Elliott, and several members of the Committee already had doubts about Shipton’s leadership, particularly in the light of his failure to push through into the Western Cwm and his seeming lack of determination on Cho Oyu, but they could not bring themselves to dispense with him altogether – the main problem being that there was no other obvious candidate. It was felt, however, that a more forceful climbing leader was needed for the final push on the mountain, together with a good organiser to co-ordinate preparations in Britain, so that Shipton could remain a figurehead for the expedition while the two most vital executive functions of leadership were hived off. It was a compromise decision with all the weaknesses that this involved.

  The Committee liked the idea of a military man with a proven ability in organisation and management. Two soldiers were particularly discussed – Major Jimmy Roberts, a Gurkha officer who had climbed extensively in the Himalaya, and Colonel John Hunt, who had also served in India and had had both Alpine and Himalayan expedition experience, but was almost completely unknown in British climbing circles. The previous summer, however, Hunt had climbed in the Alps with Basil Goodfellow, who was secretary at this time of both the Alpine Club and the Himalayan Committee. Impressed by Hunt’s ability as a mountaineer, combined with his obvious drive and capability as an organiser, Goodfellow pushed Hunt’s case very strongly and it was decided that he was the ideal choice as assault leader and organiser.

  On being told of the Committee’s suggestion that there should be an assault leader, Eric Shipton concurred but suggested that ‘deputy leader’ would be a better title and that Charles Evans who had been on Cho Oyu with him could best fill this role. There was no question of Evans, a busy brain surgeon, being able to take on the job of full-time organiser, however, so this left an opening for Hunt.

  But Elliott and Goodfellow were determined to go much further than this and the day after the Committee meeting, without consulting Shipton, Elliott wrote to Hunt asking whether he would be available for the expedition as assault or deputy leader, and also to act as full-time organiser. A few days later Goodfellow telegrammed Hunt, inviting him to come over to England to discuss his role with Shipton. It must have been downright embarrassing for all concerned. Shipton was under the impression that he was interviewing Hunt for the job of expedition organiser, while Hunt had been given the impression that he was to be deputy leader – a role that Shipton considered was already held by Charles Evans. The meeting was a failure and Hunt returned to Germany where he was serving at the time. Charles Wylie, another army officer, was made full-time organiser and set up an office in the Royal Geographical Society building.

  But Goodfellow, convinced that Hunt was essential to the success of the expedition, was not prepared to let the matter drop. At the next Committee meeting on 11 September, the question of deputy leadership was at the top of the agenda. Shipton was asked to leave the room – an extraordinary slight to the leader of the expedition - while the Committee discussed it. When Shipton was asked back in, he was told that the Committee had decided to make John Hunt not deputy leader but co-leader, something that they must have realised would have been unacceptable to Shipton, who felt he had no choice but to resign.

  Inevitably, there was uproar throughout the world
of mountaineering and within the team. Eric Shipton was by far the best-known and most popular mountaineer in Britain at that time. Nobody had ever heard of John Hunt. Bourdillon, loyal as always, said he was going to withdraw from the expedition and it was Shipton who persuaded him to stay on. Evans was very distressed though, ironically, he received the title deputy leader. Hillary, first hearing about it in a newspaper report, was indignant, saying that Everest just wouldn’t be the same without Shipton, but he never thought of withdrawing from the expedition.

  Were the Committee right? Would Everest have been climbed under Shipton’s leadership? Certainly several members of his team thought so, arguing that Charles Evans and Charles Wylie would have ensured that the organisation was sound and that the determination of the climbers out in front, men like Hillary and Lowe, could have carried the expedition with its own momentum, even if Shipton had left it to look after itself. I experienced something like this when I went to Nuptse, the third peak of Everest; the leader of the expedition believed in letting the climbers out in front make their own decisions, without actually appointing anyone in authority. We had no radios, but left each other little notes at the various camps with the plans that each member had made. We climbed the mountain in a storm of acrimony, which might have had a certain dynamic force of its own. But in the case of Everest, I suspect the problem was so huge and complex, the need for careful co-ordination so great, that it required a firm and positive overall leadership. This can only come from one person who has this responsibility vested in him, is prepared to use it, and at the same time has the acceptance and respect of his fellow team members. From this point of view, the expedition almost certainly had a higher chance of success under John Hunt’s leadership than it would have done under Shipton who, apart from anything else, never seemed totally committed to the enterprise or happy directing a single-minded thrust up a mountain. It was very unfortunate, however, that the decision was made in such a messy way.