White Limbo: The Classic Story Of The First Australian Climb Of Everest

by Hall, Lincoln

  The following day we were permitted to tour the inside of the palace. The same feeling of extravagant holiness pervaded the hallways and chambers of the ancient building. Our appreciation of the artistry of the famous tomb of the fifth Dalai Lama and of the exquisite murals colouring the walls of the rooms was limited by the lack of light given out by our candles. Electric lights hung from the ceiling in the most incongruous places, but an electrical fault had started a fire a few months before so the lights were no longer used.

  The roof of the Potala looked up at nothing but the rocky mountains which ringed the valley. The human world with its endless suffering and ephemeral joys was in the dusty and primitive city below. Above soared the heavens in all their purity. In the Potala we could feel that what lingered from the days of the Dalai Lama’s rule was the sense of separation between the monks, whose thoughts were with the heavens, and the lay people, who were very much of the earth. For us, Lhasa was part of a different pilgrimage. Our Higher Path involved keeping our hands and feet firmly on the ground.

  After flying from sea-level up to 3500 metres, it was essential that we spend several days at Lhasa adjusting to the reduced amount of oxygen in the atmosphere before proceeding any higher. Our time was divided between visiting the most famous of the city’s monuments, sorting our equipment and wandering, fascinated, around the town. Days could have been spent sitting and watching Tibetan life go by but we were driven on by our carefully planned itinerary and our impatience to reach our mountain.

  The roads in Tibet are amongst the worst in the world—an endless succession of potholes, fords, washouts, rockfalls and sand-dunes. The bus we caught from Lhasa liked the road even less than we did. The route to Xigatse (that night’s destination) involved several high passes where the road zig-zagged its way up from the valley floor. Our bus refused to cross even the first of these. The driver scurried down the hillside with a bucket to fetch water for the radiator. We stepped outside to realign our heads and shoulders after the hours of continuous shaking. Walking gave more time to appreciate the immensity of the landscape. From Lhasa we had driven through huge grass-covered hills buttressed with gigantic cliffs. There were neither buildings nor trees to give perspective. The only scale we had was the long time it took for the bus to approach and leave behind each roadside hill. The pass itself was surrounded by rocky peaks. On the crest was a sizeable collection of Buddhist prayer flags which had been placed there in appreciation of the power of nature and to acknowledge the humility of humanity before such forces. Beyond, the road descended more gently. The plateau had taken a step up and opened out and for the first time the emptiness of our surroundings came to me with force. It was little wonder that one of the world’s most complex religions had evolved here as the inhabitants, driven by hardship and awe, sought to explain reasons for existence.

  Our vehicle caught up so we hopped aboard for the few hours it took to reach the next climb. This time the bus almost made it to the top before we had to walk. The pass gave magnificent views to the south and west of hills and mountains disappearing into the distance. Two more days’ travel through the vast land lay between us and the Himalaya.

  At about five that afternoon we stopped for a different reason. We pulled up behind a queue of trucks waiting to be ferried across the Tsangpo. When we walked past a dozen trucks to the bank of the swollen muddy river we learnt, to our horror, that the first few trucks had been waiting for six days. The flooded river was too powerful to allow the ferry to operate. Rather than incur the expenses of fuel and damage to their vehicles from retracing their paths on the rough roads, the truck drivers chose to wait, however long it took, for the waters to subside. We did not wish to waste time driving back to Lhasa and taking an alternative route, but at first we seemed to have no choice. The officials from the C.M.A., who were to stay with us for the duration of the expedition, rushed off to the nearest telephone. It was to solve exactly those sorts of problems that the C.M.A. insisted that the expedition employ at least one liaison officer. After an hour or so the officials returned looking pleased. Through our interpreter, Mr Xia, we were informed that a truck from Xigatse would meet us on the other side. That was good news, but it did not solve the problem of how to cross the fast-flowing river which was about three hundred metres wide where we stood.

  An extended shouting-match with people on the other side seemed to achieve nothing until we noticed a man launching a boat about half a kilometre upstream. Though he rowed furiously, the force of the river carried him down almost to where we stood by the time he reached our bank. The man’s boat was a very curious craft. The idea for its construction may well have inspired the rhyme “Three Men in a Tub”. The framework was of willow, each pole little thicker than a broom handle. Over that, to form the hull, was a covering of yak skin. The result was a light and surprisingly watertight rectangular coracle. Though its river-worthiness had been proven before our eyes we were still a little fearful about entrusting to it both ourselves and the gear we had in the bus. However, as there was no alternative we agreed to be ferried across the river.

  While we unloaded our baggage from the bus the boatman dragged the coracle from the water, turned it upside down, crawled underneath, then stood up with it on his back. As he staggered upstream along the shore he looked from behind like an enormous two-legged tortoise. By the time we had carried all our luggage half a kilometre upstream, another coracle rowed across to us. The boatmen tied the two craft together and motioned for us to pass our luggage aboard. Half the baggage and almost half our team filled the first boatload. There was little daylight left so we quickly pushed off. Immediately we were swept downstream. By rowing hard the boatmen were able to keep our cross-stream progress slightly ahead of our down-river speed. They grinned at our obvious delight in this unusual form of transport. Mike kept his movie camera pressed to his eye, panning and zooming left and right. We beached on the far shore without shipping any water at all.

  The boatmen carried their craft back upstream to make the second trip. Immediately the local villagers began to descend upon us. They were obviously astonished to see a group of Westerners calmly sitting by the river with a huge pile of baggage. There was a sizeable audience to witness the arrival of the second boatload of climbers and gear at dusk. We thanked the boatmen as they strode off, tortoise-like, with an air that implied they rescued stranded mountaineering expeditions every day of the week.

  The impending darkness drew with it heavy storm clouds. We were led by a mob of enthusiastic children to the shelter of the schoolhouse as the first few raindrops began to fall. With all our gear inside, there was little room to move. The children jammed the doorway and window in their eagerness to watch the behaviour of strange foreigners. Our dinner that night was a packet of biscuits and a few cups each of Tibetan tea. The tea was made with milk, salt and yak butter, and was definitely an acquired taste. We soon gave up hope of the truck from Xigatse arriving that night, so we bedded down on the tables, benches and floor in our sleeping bags.

  The next morning we had time to explore the village. Both the houses and the high walls that sheltered them from wind were made of mud brick. The courtyards, and sometimes the roofs of the buildings, were piled high with yak-dung and firewood. Few trees grew anywhere within sight and firewood was mostly the twisted and stunted trunks of the low bushes which grew in the sand-dunes behind the settlement. From the sand-dunes I could see a fertile and heavily cultivated side valley which presumably provided the village with its grain and other crops. I guessed that the village itself had been built on the banks of the Tsangpo to serve as a ferry town, at a time when yak-skin coracles provided the only way of crossing the river.

  Our truck arrived at the village shortly after midday. We threw our gear in the back, climbed on top of it, then bounced off along the road towards Xigatse. Though I had not believed it possible, the road was even worse than the one we had endured the previous day. In a few spots it had washed away leaving deep gullies. Since an u
nladen truck had a better chance of crossing the gullies left by the flood, we hopped out at those places. It was obvious that even if our bus had been able to cross the river, there was no way it could have negotiated this road.

  The dusty and bumpy journey lasted two hours. Xigatse, the second city of Tibet, was in a large valley. A ruined fort of enormous proportions overlooked our barrack-style hotel. We stayed in Xigatse for two nights, both to aid our acclimatisation and to allow time to explore the city. Xigatse was most famous for the huge Tashihlunpo Monastery, the centre of the Panchen sect of Tibetan Buddhism. We spent an afternoon wandering around its many passages and hallways. The most impressive sight was a giant statue of Buddha. It stood twenty-six metres high and had been completed in 1914 after four years of labour. Like all other important statues we had seen in Tibet the figure was gilded and inlaid with gems and semiprecious stones. By now we were no longer impressed by the ostentatious wealth. It was easy to understand the popularity of the famous sage Milarepa who, after years of study, scorned his monastery and wandered Tibet preaching the word of Buddha in ballads and poems.

  Despite the wealth of the monasteries, most of the monks live austere lives. One luxury they are allowed is afternoon tea. It was an anachronistic sight to see the red-robed monks, who live by rules laid down centuries ago, lining up to receive their ration of tea in thermoses. The tea-kitchen was an amazing place. A furnace heated a tub with a built-on roof (“lid” seems inappropriate for a pot three metres in diameter), and the tea was drawn from different points around the tub. The size made us appreciate the population of the monastery which in itself indicated the force of Buddhism in modern Tibet.

  Xigatse itself was a much slower city than Lhasa. There was a great deal of building going on but little of the bustle and air of business that had pervaded Lhasa. The essential difference was that in Xigatse the Tibetan people greatly outnumbered the Chinese.

  The monsoon in Tibet takes a strange form. There are constant storm clouds but only occasional rainfall. We arrived in time for one of the biggest downpours of the season. The streets and alleyways immediately turned to deep mud, but the smoke and haze which had been hanging over the town was cleaned from the air. We were concerned that the road to Xegar, our next stop, would have become impassable. Luckily the rain did little damage and in fact helped settle the dust. We left Xigatse early so that we had time to visit the hot springs of Lhaze. The springs were in the middle of an open plain so, to protect the bathers, walls and even buildings had been constructed around the springs. We savoured the hot bath, knowing it would be our last proper wash until we returned in two months’ time.

  From Lhaze we crossed a minor pass then drove along fertile river valleys. The valleys were narrow and the green fields of barley with the occasional vivid yellow patch of mustard seemed especially bright against the brown rocky hillside which soared up steeply from the valley floor.

  As we approached Xegar the mountains receded, leaving an open plain. The town was nestled at the far side of the valley on the lower flanks of a peak almost steep enough to be called a spire. The ancient fort of Xegardzong topped the peak and its ruined walls flowed down the slopes to the town. It was a magnificent situation for a fortress. As Xigatse had been smaller and quieter than Lhasa, so Xegar was smaller and even more primitive again. Each day we drove further and further away from civilisation. Nature, always the undisputed master of Tibet, was soon to take over completely.

  Our Chinese staff were worried that the heavy rains might make it impossible to cross the Dzakar Chu River, the final obstacle before Base Camp. Rather than joining the Tsangpo, the river flowed around the eastern side of the Everest massif to join the Arun River which flowed south through Nepal into India. Jim, who had travelled to Base Camp before, and Tim and I spent the evening discussing alternatives, only to decide there was no option but to find a way across.

  The next morning we set off early. It was a beautiful day. After a few kilometres we branched off the “highway” to Nepal on to an even rougher road, sometimes barely a track, which led over a 5000-metre pass named the Pang La. Our truck slowed almost to a crawl as it wound its way slowly up the mountainside. Near the top all vegetation had disappeared, leaving a sea of scree. When we crested the pass we were amazed to see, forty kilometres away, the Himalaya stretched out before us. Cho Oyu, Gyachung Kang, Makalu and, in the middle of them all, Qomolangma—Mt Everest. We stopped the truck and jumped out. The monsoon clouds soon closed in, but not before we were given enough time to appreciate the scale of our objective. The giant mountains of Makalu and Cho Oyu seemed dwarfed. Of all of us, only Greg had not seen Mt Everest before, and he was now adjusting his expectations to the unimaginable reality.

  Back in the truck we coasted down the southern side of the pass. At the river, the sight of our two truckloads of gear and food waiting for us on the far side gave us confidence. It was an exciting ford across the fast-flowing rocky river. Five metres from the far shore, and luckily not before, our driver stalled his vehicle and had to be towed out by one of the other trucks. We celebrated with lunch in the sun, a quick affair since we were all eager to reach Base Camp as soon as possible. After an hour we passed the small village of Chobuk, built in the middle of a boulder field several kilometres long and as wide as the open valley. It was the most imperfect spot for a village that I could imagine. From there the road branched off from the river and led up the Rongbuk Valley.

  The valley which drained the northern slopes of Everest was appropriately magnificent, gradually narrowing until it was almost a gorge. A thousand metres above us on both sides rose gigantic cliffs. The skyline was a jagged ridge of pinnacles and turrets balanced against the call of gravity—perhaps an example of the power of Mt Everest, looming huge somewhere hidden in the clouds at the head of the valley. In the midst of this setting were the ruins of Rongbuk Monastery. The few monks who lived there, and the many who had lived there in the past, could have held no doubts about the insignificance of humanity compared to the forces of nature.

  The road crept around the rocky hillside a hundred metres or so above the noisy Rongbuk River while the clouds sank low over us. What an inhospitable place to spend the next two months! We tried to keep from our minds the thought that on the mountain itself, conditions would be much harsher. Comfort would be a peripheral issue from now on, one we would worry about but which could not receive priority if we were to climb the mountain.

  The valley opened out of the gorge into a river flat. On one side only was a small grassy area. Everywhere were scree and the smaller rocks of the river basin. This was it, our Base Camp. We had arrived.

  I woke in the morning to a familiar yet unexpected silence. Missing was the subtle background noise as the tent flapped and stretched in the gentlest of breezes. Several centimetres of snow cloaked our tents, freezing all movement and causing darkness to linger as dawn broke outside. I peeked through the door and saw that the whiteness extended into the sky. There was no point in waiting for the sun, since the clouds would continue to keep it distant. I crawled from my cozy sleeping bag, dressed quickly and stepped out to face the first day of a different world.

  Now that we were at Base Camp a new stage had begun. Our journey from Australia through China and Tibet had been a necessary preamble to our climb. Travelling was a disorientating process which freed us from the comforts of routine, encouraged our minds to become alert and aware, and so made us live in the present. Our climb of Mt Everest would involve incredible hardship because of the cold, the lack of oxygen and the dangers of avalanche and rockfall. Once on the mountain we could afford to ignore none of those things because our survival would depend on constant concentration. But meanwhile, at our secure and comparatively comfortable Base Camp, the sensible approach was to let our immediate problems absorb our attention.

  Automatically I looked to the south where the mass of Mt Everest lay. Clouds blocked all view as if to remind me that as there was plenty of time, there was no immedia
te necessity to see the mountain. The weeks ahead would breed a familiarity with the peak whose beauty and challenge would attract us while its dangers repelled. Here at 5100 metres we had first to allow our bodies to adjust to the reduced amount of oxygen in the upper limits of the atmosphere. The higher we went, the less oxygen there would be. For the moment we had to take things easily and limit our ambitions to more gentle heights.

  The lack of oxygen was self-limiting. The boundless energy we had been bottling up inside for months evaporated in the thin air. We felt no desire to do more than the menial tasks that were necessary and possible at Base Camp.

  That first morning we sorted and repacked our food and equipment. With the food that the C.M.A. had bought in advance, the total weight of equipment and supplies for three months was about three tonnes. Though we had cast our eyes over the intimidating pile in Lhasa the prospect of checking the contents had been too daunting to tackle there.

  Despite the lack of sunshine the air warmed sufficiently to melt the snow. Late in the morning Greg looked up from what he was doing and immediately shouted “Hey, look at that!”

  We turned to the south. Beyond the hillock of moraine in the foreground the cloud had opened to reveal a face of snow buttressed with indistinct rock ridges. As we watched, the clouds lifted further to reveal the shape which was familiar to us all from photographs—the summit of Qomolangma, Mt Everest, the highest point on earth. It was a sobering view. Even from twenty kilometres away the peak loomed high above us. There was no hint of the way the mountain lay back from the vertical, a truth told by our maps and distant oblique views from Nepal. No one found much to say. Quietly we each absorbed the fact that there before us was our objective. After years of planning we were finally here. At last, there were no distractions, only the thought of climbing the mountain. The piles of rope and ice-axes at our feet assumed a new importance now the peak was in sight. The expedition had begun.