Hanover Browsing
IN 1952 the big mountain book was Maurice Herzog's Annapurna. This described the first ascent, on the first try by a French expedition, of this 26,493-foot Himalayan peak. Two climbers reached the top on June 3, 1950, and narrowly missed losing their lives. As it was, they were badly frozen, and had to be carried down the mountain and then suffered months of hospitalization. The expedition paid heavily for small mistakes and haphazard planning, which, by the nature of a first attempt, was inevitable.
This book, written with glowing Gallic fervor, reflects the fact all Himalayan climbers agree upon, that climbing there is a spiritual experience.
Sir John Hunt's book, The Ascent ofEverest, which appeared the latter part of January 1954, unlike Herzog's book, is a masterpiece of understatement, and as well reflects meticulous planning based upon 32 years of British experience on Everest.
A long line of honored names prepared the way: Bury, Routledge, Odell, Mallory, Irvine, Smyth, Shipton, Tilman, and many others. I recall meeting Mallory at Dartmouth the year before he died on the 1924 Everest expedition. He was a fine person: modest, handsome, soft-spoken. It was Mallory, as everyone knows, who answered the query as to why one tried such a mountain with all the concomitant suffering and danger, with his reply: Becauseit is there.
In spite of excellent and nearly successful attempts by the Swiss, most mountaineers, I think, are glad the honor fell to the British, as they have been the most persistent in the attempt. It took many years of effort, study of equipment, development of oxygen apparatus, and reconnaissance of routes - plus favorable weather — to conquer Everest.
Before mentioning Hunt's book, let me quote from the latest issue of the BritishAlpine Journal, kindly loaned me by Nathaniel Goodrich, which throws light on this expedition. T. Grahame Brown, author of the Alpine classic, Brenva, writes: "As a mountain Everest is much the size with Mt. Blanc and Monte Rosa when each is measured above its true valley base, and the difficulties of Everest itself are no greater, and even considerably less, than those which have been successfully overcome on other mountains of the same relative size, but of much smaller absolute height above the sea. Formidable as is the rocks and ice on Everest, the real difficulty is physiological... the effect of thin air at great elevations, on man's physical capacity and on his will to tackle obstacles which would not stop or deter him at lesser heights. The attainment of the summit was due as much to many who worked quietly at home to lessen the physiological difficulty as to the grand efforts of the men who actually reached the top."
When Sir Edmund Hillary and the Sherpa, Tensing, reached the actual summit of Everest on May 29, 1953, their magnificent personal efforts were crowned with success which was due, all insist, to the team as a whole. Each member of it, transport officer and climber, had to play, and did play, his essential part in the outcome, and it is to the whole membership of the twelve-man team that congratulations are due. They were all well-known climbers though none of the famous Everest names of the past were present.
Some of Hunt's diary printed in the British Alpine Journal, gives a more graphic and less understated account than his book.
The question had been: Should Everest be climbed in a holiday spirit, by a small party of friends, unemcumbered by scientists? This was Eric Shipton's view. Or should it be a problem to be solved by military planning and methods? Sir John Hunt's book is a vindication of this latter method.
Hunt's confession of greed is of interest. He had found a can of fish in some Swiss debris left by their earlier expedition. Hunt writes: "It is an interesting commentary on appetite and animal instincts at 26,000 feet — and a fact I mention not without certain feelings of shame - that I was unsocial enough to conceal a small tin of fish from my companions. I took it into the little 'blister' tent and emptied the tin myself."
Modesty is the keynote of the book, which, from notes and diaries, was written in thirty days! The party got on well with one another and in four months there were no angry words. It might be remembered that Bourdillion and Evans had reached 28,700 feet two days before, and had to come back owing to lack of oxygen, and that Hillary and Tensing, were actually the second assault party.
This is a really fine book, and with it might be read, if the reader is sufficiently interested, W.H. Murray's recent book, The Story of Everest, which tells of all eleven British attempts from 1921 on. It is now agreed that Mallory and Irvine lost their lives ascending, and that they did not reach the top, a conclusion that Smythe and his party reached in 1933.
