The Everest Story by Tim Vicary. Part 2.
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Chapter three
Through Tibet to Everest – 1921
Until the early nineteenth century, nobody in the west knew about Mount Everest. People in Tibet knew, of course – they called it Chomolungma: ‘Goddess Mother of the World’, and to people in Nepal it was Sagarmatha: ‘Goddess of the Sky’. But no one in Tibet or Nepal had ever climbed the mountain – they thought that was a very strange idea. And no foreign person had ever been so far into the Himalayas.
But in the 1830s a British soldier called George Everest was making maps in north India. He made the first maps of the Himalayas, and measured the height of some of the mountains. But Everest finished his work in 1843, and he never saw Chomolungma. The first British man to see the mountain was Everest’s friend, Andrew Waugh. In 1852 Radhanath Sikdhar, who worked for Waugh, said he had discovered the highest mountain in the world. It was measured carefully many times. Then in 1856 Waugh said that this was the highest mountain in the world. He gave it the name of his old friend, George Everest, in 1865.
But very few British people were able to enter Tibet or Nepal at that time. So it was not until 1921 that the first British expedition went to see if it was possible to climb the mountain. There were nine British climbers on this expedition, and one of them was George Mallory.
To get to Everest, the climbers had to walk 500 kilometres through Tibet. Their Tibetan porters carried everything they needed: food, tents, clothes, cameras, and climbing equipment.
It was a long, difficult journey which took a month. They were always climbing – at first through river valleys with tall trees, colourful flowers and birds – then onto a wide stony place where nothing grew. There was no sound except the wind, and all the time the air was becoming thinner.
The climbers walked past Tibetan villages high up on the sides of mountains, and came to Rongbuk, the highest monastery in the world, 4,800 metres above sea level. The monks in the monastery looked at the visitors in surprise, wondering why they wanted to climb the dangerous mountain.
The climbers decided that the best way to get onto the mountain was to go up the East Rongbuk Glacier. From there they planned to climb to the North Col, a small flat place on the north ridge of Everest.
By this time it was late in the year, and the winds were getting stronger. They had not planned to get to the summit this year, but only to look for a way up. But on 23 September 1921, Mallory, with two other climbers and three porters, climbed up the steep ice wall of the East Rongbuk Glacier. When they reached the snow ridge of the North Col the next day, they could see the summit, 1,800 metres above them. But at 7,000 metres it was difficult to breathe, and they moved slowly. And they could hardly stand up in the strong icy winds.
They would have to go down, and come back next year.