by Michael Gill
Before leaving with the yeti scalp in November, Ed, always keen that his expeditions should be looking at unclimbed peaks, had suggested that the wintering party should establish a high camp for a preliminary look at unclimbed Ama Dablam. It had not occurred to him that they might be strong enough to climb what looked like an impossibly difficult mountain. So when he heard in mid-March that a party consisting of Mike Ward as leader, accompanied by Barry Bishop, Mike Gill and Wally Romanes, had made the first ascent on 13 March, he was surprised as well as pleased – though with the note in his diary that there might be a problem with the Government of Nepal about permission to climb, or rather lack of it.
My memory of Ama Dablam is of a benign extension of our days in the Silver Hut. We had so many advantages. We were fit and as well acclimatised as we ever would be up to the 22,500ft summit. The ridge we were attempting was familiar in that we’d seen it in profile every time we stepped outside the hut. The route was south facing, capturing the late winter sun and sheltered from the prevailing north-westerly wind. There were three-and-a-half weeks between Wally’s first reconnaissance and our arrival on the summit, but the climbing had been fitted into short bursts when we could be spared from the physiology programme. The most difficult part of the climb, the vertical rock of the first step, was led brilliantly by Mike Ward and Barry Bishop on 24 and 25 February. Our two Sherpas agreed with alacrity when we offered to do the load-carrying ourselves to the two higher camps. On 11 March the four of us carried loads to the lowest of the two ice bulges on the face and dug ourselves a snow cave. The next day Mike Ward and Wally climbed up to the ice cliffs skirting the upper ice bulge, the ‘Dablam’, which might have stopped us. Again luck was on our side. Shining cliffs of green ice rose above us, but between the ice cliff and the rock face plunging vertically for thousands of feet was a narrow rock ledge leading to the top of the ‘Dablam.’ After that, a long line of steps chipped up the central 55-degree fluting carried us to the summit. Looking across at the immense Lhotse–Nuptse wall with Everest looming high over it, we felt suitably humbled. But it had been a good climb.
– CHAPTER 23 –
Makalu unravels
In late 1960 a political crisis in Nepal was heading towards its climax, and on 15 December, as Ed, Desmond Doig and the yeti scalp were being welcomed in Chicago, King Mahendra abruptly closed his parliament and took control. Peter Mulgrew, Ed’s Antarctic companion, had been with the yeti-hunters managing radio communications and was in Kathmandu when Parliament was dismissed. He sent Ed an analysis of what had happened:
Dear Ed, Arrived a couple of days ago to find a revolution in full swing. Everyone seems to be in jail, and the way things are going I may well be Prime Minister when you return … Peter1
The after-shocks of the crisis were not being felt in the Mingbo Valley – or not until the ascent of Ama Dablam became known. And when Ed wrote to Louise during his travels with the yeti scalp, he was more interested in how he was being received in London than in what was happening in Kathmandu:
My Dearest Louise, I always have mixed feelings about my visits to England. There’s so much I enjoy and so many people I like and yet it’s the place where I’m greeted with the most suspicion by the pukka sahibs. Even Larry Kirwan agrees that this is true – although I think I’ve been successful in calming the fears of the scientists here that I might be trying to use them for my own ends. Still it’s not nice to feel that official circles view one a little askance – and rightly or wrongly that’s the impression I always get in London. Despite our good reception here by the press and radio I’m really quite happy to be leaving and will be happy to get the damn old Yeti scalp back to its home and then get on with the routine work of the expedition.2
After helicoptering in to Khumjung on 5 January to return the scalp, and visiting Griff Pugh in Mingbo, Ed flew back to New Zealand for a holiday with the family. He returned to the Himalayas in late February. The next three months would be focused on an attempt on Makalu as part of the physiological programme, but for the first 17 days he’d be joined by Louise and a group of other expedition wives who called themselves ‘The Women’s Expedition’. It was Louise’s first visit to the Himalayas.
As she and Ed passed through Calcutta, they visited The Indian Aluminium Company which, encouraged by the inimitable Desmond, had donated a prefabricated aluminium school for Khumjung.
Their arrival in Nepal coincided with the State Visit of Queen Elizabeth to Kathmandu. At the last minute, Sir Edward [sic] Hillary and Mrs E. Hillary were invited to a banquet in her honour on 27 February. Louise described the occasion to her family:
I went to my room to attend to my hair as shortly before we had been commanded to appear at the State Banquet given by King Mahendra. This had come as a great surprise. Ed had only his dark suit while everybody else had their most glorious garments complete with decorations. I used Gita’s makeup and June’s pearls which fell off with a ghastly plastic clatter as I was saying Hello to the Earl of Home. We met many wonderfully important looking people. There were only 100 guests. We all had to shake hands and curtsy. I sat next to the Head of the Nepalese Royal Household, a darling little man. The King gave a speech in Nepali and the Queen gave hers in English and a very lovely one too. She had the most marvellous emerald and diamond tiara and jewellery.3
The King’s speech to Queen Elizabeth touched on the awkward question of democracy:
Your Majesty’s land, justly called the land of the Mother of Parliaments, is also, I believe, aware of the difficulties that beset a country recently dedicated to the development of this system.
Although on account of many and diverse errors and shortcomings, my desire to work out a strong and unalloyed form of parliamentary democracy for the betterment of my Kingdom could not be a success at this moment, I am still firm in my earlier belief that your experiences in the development and working of your institutions can be and are of great value to us. At the same time it is but natural for any good and successful system to take time to strike roots.
Despite the courage and well-known devotion of our people to art and matters cultural, there is a lack of modern amenities in our ancient land and this fact must have told on Your Majesty’s comforts. Even then, I trust that our honoured guests must have felt today how happy and pleased my people are to welcome Your Majesty …4
King Mahendra need not have been too apologetic about his failure to implement within 10 years a system which Queen Elizabeth’s forebears had been working on for many centuries, but he and his ministers were sensitive to traces of criticism. This was an element in the storm that burst on Ed when the world media ran headlines that his expedition – and scientists of all people – had made the first ascent of Ama Dablam. It was not a high mountain but it was a spectacular and much-photographed presence looming over Tengboche Monastery.
The summit had been reached on 13 March while Ed was arriving in Khumbu with the Women’s Expedition. On hearing news of the ascent two days later, they sent a message of congratulation to the climbers. But Ed’s pleasure turned to dismay when, eight days later, a plane arrived at Mingbo with an alarming and uncompromising message from the Nepali Foreign Secretary:
To Sir Edmund Hillary, Party Commander.
In view of unauthorized ascent of AMADABLAM permit for Makalu has been cancelled.
You are advised to abandon your plan on Makalu and return as soon as possible.
Yours faithfully, Y M Khanal, Foreign Secretary5
This was out of left field. Permission was a recent innovation for the big peaks, the Everests and Makalus. No one in the Silver Hut had thought for a moment there was need for permission to climb one of the smaller mountains. We hurriedly looked at our permit. We could work in the Mingbo and ‘climb adjacent peaks’. Ama Dablam was very adjacent, but it seemed fine legal discriminations were irrelevant.
Ed needed to return post-haste to plead his case in Kathmandu. Helicopters were not available in 1961 but fortuitously Ed had arrange
d for his Sherpas to build a rough airstrip at 15,500ft above Mingbo during the winter. It had been requested by the Red Cross who were flying in food for Tibetan refugees and had been scraped out in a short side-valley, the entrance to which was at right angles to the 400-metre strip. When Captain Schrieber made his first crabwise landing, a rock demolished the rear landing wheel. ‘Ach!’ he said. ‘Mingbo is not for beginners.’
The Antarctic had hardened Ed to risky flights in small planes, and an hour after leaving Mingbo he was with Desmond Doig in Kathmandu. Guy Powles, New Zealand High Commissioner in Delhi, wrote: ‘Rumour here says Nepal is more upset about the publicity given to the climb than about the lack of a permit. In this connection Doig’s despatch in today’s Statesman is not exactly helpful. There may be some more “knee-bending” required.’6
More reasons came to light for this excessive punishment for the ascent of a 22,700ft peak – cancellation of a large and expensive international expedition. One was that Ed had attended the State Banquet in a lounge suit rather than dinner suit with decorations. But a more compelling explanation was that King Mahendra had been offended by English criticism of his action in closing down Parliament. Our expedition had become a scapegoat as Nepal sought a way of showing its displeasure.
In the end it was Desmond Doig who rescued the expedition. He had known Dr Tulsi Giri, the new prime minister, from way back, and when all hope seemed lost, Dr Giri agreed to hear Ed and Desmond at two early-morning breakfasts. Moving from unyielding to non-committal, he suggested that if Sir Edmund made an unqualified apology and promised never to make such an error again he might be forgiven.7
A few days later Ed received a letter:
My dear Sir Hillary, In view of the unqualified apology submitted in your letter dated March 23, 1961 and in consideration of the undertaking given therein that no such incident would occur in future, His Majesty’s Government of Nepal have been pleased to give a sympathetic consideration on the subject and, as a special case and without creating any precedent whatsoever, to permit the party to continue and complete the scientific study in the Makalu range, including an attempt on the peak, up to the end of May. His Majesty’s Government of Nepal have decided to impose a fine of rupees 800/- on the party for having climbed Ama Dablam, a virgin peak, without the sanction of the Government, in addition to royalty amount of 3200/--N.C. for Ama Dablam. Yours sincerely, Y M Khanal. Foreign Secretary.8
Three hundred loads to Makalu Base Camp
Ed flew in to Mingbo on 5 April having lost two weeks of acclimatisation and fitness in Kathmandu. He already knew that the route to Makalu would be difficult for an expedition carrying 300 loads to the foot of the climb. It involved cutting a route and fixing ropes over three snow and ice passes at around 20,000ft. Some of the porters would be unused to carrying loads in mountain terrain and at such an altitude. When he’d spoken to Griff Pugh at Mingbo on 5 January, Ed had floated the idea of reducing the amount of scientific equipment and cutting back the loads of oxygen to a minimum for medical purposes. Griff rightly protested about reducing either. Oxygen would be essential in the event of illness on Makalu, and continuing the science programme at very high altitudes was a primary goal.
The tactics of the expedition had become less clear with time. An early plan had been to have two groups of climbers, one using oxygen, the other not. The oxygen team would do all the work, cutting steps, fixing ropes, plugging a path in soft snow, preparing food and liquids, making scientific observations and collecting specimens. The oxygenless group would be the experimental animals, and carry nothing while they climbed a route prepared for them. If an oxygenless climber reached such a state of exhaustion he could go no further, he would be given an oxygen set and helped down.
It was a plan that had been lost along the way for the 10-man climbing team who began crossing to Makalu at the beginning of April. The five scientist/climbers who had spent the winter in the Silver Hut and should have developed a super-charged level of acclimatisation were Mike Ward, John West, Jim Milledge, Wally Romanes and myself. Ed, Peter Mulgrew and Tom Nevison had taken part in the yeti hunt, returned home for the winter, and were now back for the Makalu phase of the expedition. Finally we had two newly arrived climbers: Leigh Ortenburger from the US and John Harrison from New Zealand. Ed was overall leader, with Mike Ward as his deputy. Griff was scientific leader but decided in the end not to go to Makalu: ‘On mature reflection I think my place is here [in the Mingbo] rather than in the Barun. The copying and coordination of results and the packing and listing of equipment in a calm and orderly way will keep me fully occupied …’9
The plan that evolved was simply to select assault teams of two or three climbers and have them sequentially attempt to reach the summit without using oxygen. There would be three scientific camps: one at Base Camp at 17,500ft; the next at Camp 3 at 21,000ft; and the last on Makalu Col, Camp 5 at 24,400ft. The bicycle ergometer would be assembled at each of these and the usual specimens collected at differing work rates. At Camps 6 and 7 and on the summit, only alveolar air samples would be collected.
None of us knew how hard it would be.
Ed is eight years older than he was in 1953
Determined to make up for lost time, Ed threw himself into a hectic itinerary of movements back and forth between the Mingbo and Makalu base in the Barun.
His letters to Louise show an uneasiness with his physical condition: ‘I’ve been a little affected by altitude since my return … This dropping in by plane is rather a shock to the system … I’ve been dashing furiously around but I’m definitely finding it far harder work than I used to and am being forced to realise that with age plus my sojourn in Kathmandu, fitness can’t just be picked up in a few days …’10
He was also missing her, as he did in the Antarctic, and often wished he was back home rather than facing a difficult encounter with the fifth-highest mountain in the world. On 25 April he wrote from Base Camp:
The mail arrived in yesterday with four letters from you. I almost hate it at times – it makes me so nostalgic … I’m really rather glad that you are missing the Sherpas and the mountains – it does show how much you enjoyed it all. And I certainly did too. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could do another walk in with Mingma and no big expedition to worry about. I don’t think it would be impossible to arrange this and I’d love to do it with you. I really am terribly fond of all my Sherpas & intend to see them all again. We could even bring some of the children too when they’re old enough …
All is going well here. Actually I sometimes think I’m not a bad organizer … I’m not going too badly myself but not quite my old self I’m afraid. However I’ve a very strong team who can carry the ball very well once we get to grips with our climbing.11
There is not the total commitment of 1953 – more an eagerness to get the climbing business over and done with. Perhaps there was some complacency too, and a too-easy disregard for his near-death encounter with this same route in 1954 when he had lapsed into coma at 23,000ft with cerebral and pulmonary edema.
The team had been misled also by the ease with which the French expedition of 1955 had placed nine French climbers and a Sherpa on the summit. There were major differences between that expedition and this one. For a start the French climbers were stronger both as a group and individually. Even more importantly, the French used oxygen day and night from Camp 4 at 23,000ft, whilst the Sherpas used it from Camp 5 at 24,300ft on Makalu Col. In his account of the climb French expedition leader Jean Franco wrote, ‘Oxygen was the sine qua non of the expedition.’12 A strong expedition with an abundance of oxygen had made Makalu look easy.
May is summit month for big peaks, and by 1 May Camp 3 was well established on a roomy névé at 21,000ft. From here a steeper section on snow and ice led to Camp 4 on a small flat area at 23,000ft. The climbing was not difficult but by now the altitude was making itself felt more seriously. This was the same height as Camp 6 on the Lhotse Face of Everest, where Band, Ward and Westmacott had
reached their ceilings. It was the camp above which the French had used oxygen for sleeping and climbing all the way to the summit. And it was the camp at which Ed had collapsed in 1954.
On 2 May Ed was cutting steps and fixing ropes with Wally Romanes on the route to Camp 4, and hoping that he was about to reach the state of acclimatisation and strength he had known in 1952 and 1953. He wrote in his diary that night at Camp 3, 21,000ft, that he was ‘tired’. On 3 May: ‘A wild night and I didn’t feel too good – not at all well acclimatized.’ The next night was ‘fearsome with gusts of wind as strong as I have experienced. I had a very poor night with headaches and backaches and all the signs of anoxia.’13
The next day Mike Ward and I climbed to Makalu Col, 24,400ft, another landmark on the route to the summit, but two days later Ed was feeling so unwell that he went down to Camp 2 at 19,000ft, accompanied by Mike Ward. His diary describes 7 May:
Had a reasonable night but woke feeling miserable with a temperature. During the day Jim Milledge and John West staggered down with Aila who had bad pneumonia [pulmonary edema] and was on oxygen …
I felt pretty seedy all afternoon and in the evening I had a frightful pain on the side of my head and face. When a Sherpa came to give me my evening meal I couldn’t get him to understand that I didn’t want it. I was sort of helpless, divorced from my limbs and although perfectly rational, when I tried to say something it just came out as gibberish – most unpleasant. The pain was pretty grim. I managed to shout for Mike Ward who finally came. He and Jim put me on oxygen. I went off to sleep later and when I awoke was human again – but rather fumbling in speech, shaking in hand and poor of balance – also seeing double. They said I had to go down to 15,000ft. I think the whole thing has been a result of my foolish efforts to catch up on everything after the Ama Dablam business. Well, we did catch up on everything but it all caught up on me as well …14