Edmund Hillary--A Biography

by Michael Gill

  To Percy he wrote about his future with the family bee business:

  Well Dad, I’ve been putting quite a lot of thought into my future and as far as I can see if I stick to the bees I’ll be as well off as in anything else. I’ve got a pretty fair idea about beekeeping and with you to keep me on the right path I won’t go very far wrong. So if you want me to help you after the war it will suit me very well. The conditions I will leave to you.

  I’ve been reading two very interesting books lately dealing with the rise to success and prosperity of two families. Both of them stress some important points, namely that by having no bank debts and by having some monetary reserves they were able to weather the worst slumps and depressions. I think this has been your idea all along hasn’t it Dad? You’ve built up some excellent assets in gear and equipment and there’s nothing to stop us going on to great success. When we have about 3000 colonies we’ll be in a pretty solid way.

  I’d be very interested if you have any good books on honey production and queen rearing. I have plenty of spare time and do a lot of reading …11

  To Gertrude, too, he wrote about his relationship with Percy:

  You know, Mother, what I’d like best from Dad as a birthday present? Well, it’s just a note saying he’d like to have me back in the business and what I have to look forward to when I do return. I’m getting on in years – 26 in a few weeks – so I have to consider the future a bit … I wrote to Rex. Poor boy, I think his incarceration is really beginning to weigh on him …12

  With June he was more expansive about his dreams for the future:

  Just lately I’ve been reading Admiral Byrd’s book ‘Alone’… I wouldn’t mind a trip to the Antarctic though I’d much prefer one to the Himalayas. What do you reckon June? Would you come up into the Himalayas for a little trip? The idea appeals to me immensely and who knows? We may end up there yet.

  Here’s something you could get for me June. Do you remember me mentioning I was keen on browsing through a bit of geology. So, my sweet, if you have an interesting textbook on the subject and forward it to me immediately I would greatly appreciate it. I feel the need for some practical scientific subject to study.

  I’d also welcome anything on NZ climbing, Nanga Parbat, K2 and Mawson …

  A couple of days ago a parcel of books arrived for me. Much to my surprise I found that they were Psychology and English textbooks. You remember I thought about taking these subjects. The Psychology looks reasonably interesting but the English is I think a bit beyond me at the moment. There’s only one big snag and that is that I haven’t enrolled in any University. I’m going to apply to Auckland and if they accept me I’ll probably sit the Psychology exam. I’d like to scrape up some sort of degree even though it is a bit late…13

  In July 1945 Ed moved to active service in the Solomon Islands. Active was a relative term: Germany had surrendered and the Pacific war was winding down. Far to the north, the Japanese were preparing a kamikaze defence of their motherland, but when on 6 August the Americans dropped an atom bomb on the city of Hiroshima and another on Nagasaki three days later, the war came to a swift end. Japan surrendered unconditionally on 15 August. For Ed there were still flights to be made, errands to be run, but there was no longer a war, just the long process of demobilisation.

  He and his squadron were stationed at Halavo Bay on Florida Island, 30 kilometres north of the large island of Guadalcanal which had been so bitterly fought over when the Americans took it from the Japanese three years earlier. Apart from its steamy heat, Halavo was a tropical paradise. Against a backdrop of rain forest and black volcanic rock, tall coconut palms fringed the shore. Catalinas, enclosed by the arms of the bay, nestled against the palms or came waddling on lowered wheels out of the turquoise sea and on to the white sand. Seaward were reefs and scattered islands.

  At Halavo Ed teamed up with Ron Ward, a kindred spirit looking for adventures. They went hunting, chasing pigeons with bows and arrows, poisonous snakes with sticks, sharks and stingrays with rifles, and on one memorable occasion a 2.5-metre crocodile with a rifle and a harpoon. But their most dangerous exploit involved the Jolly Roger, an abandoned motor boat with a flat bottom, 40 centimetres of freeboard and a very large, seized-up 170hp motor. The flight engineers got the motor going while Ed and Ron patched and painted the hull and drew a skull and crossbones on the bow. To their great satisfaction they found that its top speed of 30 knots was enough for it to overtake the Commanding Officer in his official runabout.

  The Jolly Roger, however, had the distinction of bringing Ed the first of several near-death experiences in his life. He and Ron had agreed to ferry one of the aircrew six kilometres across the bay to the American Catholic church at Tulagi. It was a clear morning, but a fresh breeze made the sea quite rough. While filling the boat with petrol, Ed noticed that one of the tanks was a bit loose but didn’t think a great deal of it.

  After dropping off their passenger, Ed and Ron turned for home into a head sea that had their flat bottom slamming hard. Suddenly there was a loud crack as a petrol-tank support broke and a spurt of flame shot out of the engine compartment into the cockpit. The only option was to abandon ship, but as Ed got to his feet a wave threw him off balance, and he landed on his bare back on the burning engine cover. He rolled overboard to join Ron in the water as the Jolly Roger went careering off belching smoke and flame.

  Both of them were burnt, but it was Ed’s back causing most of the trouble as they set out to swim ashore through a choppy sea. Ed recalled:

  [I] kept going through a fog of pain. Every now and then I’d feel myself giving out and I’d flop over on my back. Ron was pretty well done in too but he’d give me a yell and I’d start again. Finally we reached the shore. The sun was so hot on our burnt backs that we had to walk along the road backwards. Finally we found two Americans who rushed us to hospital.14

  The official telegram to New Zealand noted that ‘Sergeant Hillary received first and second degree burns to the trunk and face and upper limbs. He was taken to a US Navy hospital where he was classified as dangerously ill but later reclassified to seriously ill.’ If the burns had been third degree – full thickness loss of skin – rather than second-degree blisters which heal easily, he might have died.

  Remembering the explosion 63 years later, Ron Ward said, ‘Ed was drifting in and out of consciousness and I had to urge him to stay awake. Mind you that water was good for us and would have cooled off our burns. It’s a wonder too that the sharks didn’t get us but I suppose they preferred their meat raw, not cooked …’

  And what did he remember most about Ed? ‘I remember his ruggedness and his determination to get the job done. He’d go to the bitter end to get something finished.’15

  – CHAPTER 6 –

  Harry Ayres teaches Ed the craft of mountaineering

  Ed was surprised on his return to Auckland in January 1946 that Percy was disclaiming any need of help. While his two sons were away, the one shooting crocodiles in the Solomons, the other serving time as a conscientious objector in a detention centre, Percy had employed paid help.

  Ed needed no further encouragement. It was summer and the mountains of the Cook region beckoned, even though he was still on sick leave from the Air Force and his burnt back not yet fully healed. By now he belonged to the NZ Alpine Club and through its membership was in contact with other climbers. It was in the company of one of them, Alan Odell, a relative of Noel Odell of 1924 Everest fame, that he arrived at The Hermitage. It was a good season and the pair of them emerged from 17 days of unguided climbing with a useful bag of the easier peaks of the region: Malte Brun, Hamilton, Minarets, de la Beche, Sealy, Kitchener. Then it was back to the bees, Percy having agreed to accept back his prodigal son.

  Early in 1946 Rex was finally released from the Strathmore Detention Centre. In May 1945 he had written, ‘Yesterday saw me through three years of imprisonment – a long time but it has not been in vain – my conscience is clear and I am happy in my mind.
I now have my second wind and could do another three if necessary … I am giving up woodwork entirely and will put a lot more time into reading …’1

  Nevertheless he was relieved to be back in the relatively normal world of post-war Papakura and to be working with the bees alongside his older brother. Percy was by now aware that his sons, aged 25 and 26, were becoming more difficult to handle, whereas at age 61 he was tiring. He had kept Ed and Rex on a short leash through the good days of Radiant Living before the war, maximising the incoming honey flow through his sons’ abilities whilst minimising the outgoing cash flows by paying them as little as possible. Now they were chafing at the bit. They wanted recognition, responsibility, the chance to become partners in the bee business. For undisclosed reasons, Percy wrote a reference:

  From P.A. Hillary, Managing Director, Clovergold Apiaries, 1 May 1946.

  This is to certify that Edmund Percival Hillary, a returned Airman, has been fully employed by me for eight years in beekeeping (in honey-production). He is an expert in all branches of the work and is one of the ablest and most capable of the younger beekeepers in New Zealand. He has acted as manager of the above concern for some time and gave every satisfaction.2

  The reference seems not to have been used, and the two brothers settled into the family business. Ed was nominally still living with Percy and Gertrude at 730 Remuera Road, but in practice he preferred the View Road honey-house in Papakura. By 1947 Rex had married Winifred June Wilkie, daughter of a local headmaster. Rex was always more relaxed socially than Ed, and with his wavy hair and easy charm was attractive to women. Rex re-christened his wife Jenny to distinguish her from his sister June, and their home became an important retreat for Ed.

  Throughout his life Rex was a good brother to Ed. In the early days he was a stand-in climbing partner when no one else was available. ‘I enjoyed the trips in retrospect,’ Rex said, ‘but not at the time.’ Later when Ed was taking time off to climb in the Himalayas, it was Rex who kept him supplied with cash from the bees. And later again, after 1970, Rex became Ed’s chief school-builder in the Himalayas. As Rex resignedly said, ‘Ed was very good at talking people into doing what he wanted them to do.’3

  Throughout the late 1940s Ed and Rex increased their involvement in the business until they were running it as a partnership under the name of Hillary Brothers. The final purchase from Percy took place on 6 September 1953 when Ed, flush with cash from Everest lectures, agreed to pay £5518 spread over 12 years. There was dispute over this too. Did it include the big Papakura honey-house which by now had been replaced by a smaller building and the old one converted to apartments? In the end it was settled, but Percy had been difficult.

  Meantime, the next climbing season came around and Ed still hadn’t found the skilled, experienced partner he needed if he was to make progress on the big ice climbs clustered around Mts Cook and Tasman. He began 1947 at Malte Brun Hut with Alan Odell, but this time Chief Guide Harry Ayres was there with a client, Susie Sanders, and Harry was happy to have amateurs in his wake. A few days later they all moved up to Haast Hut, perched high among the great icefalls and crevassed névés that guard the central peaks. Harry Ayres was acknowledged as the best climber of his generation and now Ed, bringing up the rear, at last saw the maestro in action:

  We had a chance to see Harry at his best when the last steep rise to the summit proved to be eighteen inches of powder snow over solid ice. Harry gave a fine exhibition of step-cutting up this face, brushing off the snow and hacking out bucket steps in the green ice underneath. Halfway up the face he was startled by an abrupt movement from Susie and it was an eye-opener to me to see the immense power and speed with which he slammed his pick into the hard ice for an emergency belay.4

  A few days later, Ed had the breakthrough he needed. At short notice a client cancelled and Harry was available to guide Ed for a week, with an attempt on Mt Cook as the final goal. On 30 January, they set off from Haast Hut towards Cook under a starlit sky. In the dark Harry led through the crevasses of the Grand Plateau and the Linda Glacier with its litter of avalanche debris. Not long after dawn they reached the summit rocks. At the foot of the summit ice cap they put on crampons and climbed steadily up hard snow, with bouts of step-cutting on patches of ice. At 11 a.m. they were on the summit. To the north they looked on the ice-bound ridges of Teichelmann which they would climb five days later. Further north was Mt Tasman, New Zealand’s second highest peak, which Ed would climb with Harry three years later. To the south, the mile-long summit ridge ran down to the Middle and Low peaks of Cook, and beyond them on the plains far below stretched the milky turquoise waters of Lake Pūkaki.

  Ed was always unstinting in his praise of Harry Ayres:

  The technical climbing knowledge I gained in the New Zealand Alps came from Harry. We did some great climbs together and I was constantly amazed at his shrewd appraisal of difficult situations and his superb skill in overcoming them … Of moderate size but incredibly wiry and strong, he had the toughness and endurance to tackle any problem. His great ice axe cut innumerable safe steps in solid green ice and his arms seemed tireless. As a guide he was patient, encouraging and very secure … Up on the mountain he was incomparable.5

  Harry had learned his craft largely from experience. He was born in 1912, almost exactly seven years before Ed. His father was a plasterer and lather in Christchurch; his mother died when he was only 12. He followed the path of many Kiwis born into straitened circumstances during the early twentieth century: he left school at 12, did a milk round and picked up low-paid jobs such as collecting spent hops from the local brewery. At age 16 he left home to look for work on the West Coast. He milked cows, cut scrub, laid railway lines in the Buller Gorge, went panning for gold in the Coast’s brutally inaccessible gorges.

  The break into guiding came through working on the farm of Mick Sullivan at Fox, where a hotel was being built. Tourists were taken on to the nearby glacier using steps cut into the ice by the guides – not death-defying climbing but the ideal training ground for Harry, who learned to cut perfectly shaped steps. In 1937 he went east across the Alps from the West Coast to take up guiding serious climbs on the high peaks around The Hermitage. This was the golden age of guiding when few amateurs would attempt high peaks such as Tasman or Cook on their own. Equipment was primitive. Boots had leather soles fitted with metal tricounis and clinkers which gave poor grip on rock and very little grip in small steps badly cut in ice. Crampons were available but required a modest level of experience and were not always used. The job of the guide was to know the route, judge the snow conditions and weather, and cut bucket steps in ice or frozen snow. And he had always to be ready with ice-axe and rope to hold a client who slipped on an icy surface and took off at high speed down an exposed stretch of mountainside.

  For Ed, joining up with Harry was a quantum leap forwards in the development of his mountaineering skills. Country like the Kaikōuras was turning him into the tough all-rounder who could carry a big load over difficult mountain terrain, but it was Harry who led him into the big central peaks sheathed in dangerous ice. Where an icefall looked impenetrable, Harry could show him a way through. He passed on his knowledge of how to handle the multitudinous varieties and textures of snow and ice and how to use a rope for safety. From being just another Auckland amateur, Ed moved into the ranks of the best climbers of his day.

  This is not to say that he, or any other New Zealand climber, had technical skills comparable with those of top Swiss, Austrian, German or Italian climbers who between the wars had been putting up routes on faces that had previously been thought impossible. Climbing in the Southern Alps was still at an exploratory stage of its development and its devotees were for the most part self-taught. The first ascent of Mt Cook in 1894 had been made by three patriotic young employees at The Hermitage who improvised a route up the north ridge when they heard that a British-American climber, Edward Fitzgerald, with his Swiss guide Matthias Zurbriggen, might beat them to it.

 
By the late 1930s and ’40s Europeans were adopting smaller ice-axes as front-point crampons came into use, but in New Zealand, where step-cutting was still in favour, the long-handled variety of iceaxe was still used. Ed learned to apply his natural strength and stamina to cutting steps tirelessly in frozen snow or hard ice. He thrived on long, hard days in difficult conditions and bad weather. He was not aware of it at the time, but it was excellent training for the Himalayas.

  His partnership with Harry Ayres was put to the test the following year when, in February 1948, they set out for the unclimbed South Ridge of Mt Cook with guide Mick Sullivan and client Ruth Adams. This was the outstanding challenge of the time. They began from a high bivouac at the foot of the ridge just north of Nazomi. The early morning light showed a fine, windless day as they ate breakfast and stuffed their sleeping bags into their rucksacks while looking up at the three rock steps guarding the ridge. Previous attempts had reached the top of the first step but no one had climbed further. The second step was steeper than the first, but they were fired up and strong, and by 9.15 had climbed it. The crux was the third step which was steep, smooth rock at the limits of their combined abilities; but Harry, with help from Ed’s upstretched hand, was finally able to climb the last vertical section of rock and step on to the snow ridge leading up to the Low Peak. Back at The Hermitage, a watching crowd used mirrors to flash sun messages applauding their progress. Fourteen hours after leaving their Nazomi bivouac, the climbers were back at their base hut in the Hooker.

  Three days later, the same South Ridge quartet started out on the week-long epic that became known as the La Perouse Accident. Before the days of the magical nylon rope, Beale’s hemp rope was the preferred material for climbers, but it was awkward, unpredictable stuff that would invisibly rot from the inside. Older ropes would be cynically appraised as ‘probably all right if you don’t fall’. Ed’s first letter after his 1947 climb of Cook had been to his sister June on her way by boat to England to study psychology: ‘You’ll be through Panama by now. I may as well get down to business straight away and say the only thing I really want is 120 feet of Beale’s Alpine rope.’6