The Everest Story by Tim Vicary. Part 7.
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Chapter eight
To the South Col -1953
After 1950 Western climbers could no longer enter Tibet, but they could enter Nepal. In 1951 a British expedition went to the southern side of Everest for the first time, and in 1952 a Swiss climber called Raymond Lambert made an attempt on the summit with Tenzing Norgay. Tenzing was one of the Sherpa people of Nepal, who are excellent climbers and know the mountains well. Together Lambert and Tenzing almost reached the summit, but their oxygen equipment was not working well, and at the highest camp they had no sleeping bags. So at 8,597 metres – just a few metres higher than Norton had gone in 1924 – they turned back.
In 1953 John Hunt came to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, with a large British expedition. Tenzing Norgay joined them here, and the expedition set out for Thyangboche, a monastery south of Everest. The walk took seventeen days, and 350 porters were needed to carry their equipment. In Thyangboche, they were joined by two New Zealand climbers – Edmund Hillary and George Lowe.
The climbers spent three weeks at Base Camp, getting used to the thin mountain air. They climbed smaller mountains of about 6,000 metres, learning to use the oxygen equipment. John Hunt thought that Tenzing Norgay was stronger than anyone.
Their first problem was to find a way up the Khumbu Icefall onto the Khumbu Glacier. The Khumbu Glacier is a slow-moving river of ice, and the Khumbu Icefall is a large wall of broken ice. This icefall is over 300 metres high – six times higher than Niagara Falls – and the ice in it moves, very slowly, all the time. There are pieces of ice as big as houses, which could fall on the climbers’ heads at any moment. There are avalanches of ice that could kill a man in a second. Terrible crevasses go hundreds of metres down into the blue-green darkness under the climbers’ feet. Sometimes the climbers heard ice moving far below them.
The climbers and Sherpas carried loads of over 18 kilograms up this difficult route. They made Camp 2 halfway up the icefall at 5,915 metres, and Camp 3 at the top of the icefall, at 6,158 metres. Then they climbed up the glacier to Camp 4 at 6,462 metres, and Camp 5 at 6,705 metres.
The next big problem was to climb the Lhotse Face to the South Col. High above Camp 5 is the mountain of Lhotse, 8,500 metres. To the left of Lhotse is the South Col of Everest. The first 600 metres of the Lhotse Face is a steep slope of ice – the Lhotse Glacier. This ice is very difficult to climb, with many ice walls and deep crevasses.
For eleven long days the New Zealander George Lowe and the Sherpa Annullu fought their way up this wall of ice. All the way, they cut steps in the ice and fixed ropes for the others to follow them. They made Camp 6 at 7,010 metres, and Camp 7 at 7,315 metres. Then they began to climb to the left, across a wide snow slope, towards the South Col. But the weather was terrible, and they were very tired. High winds blew down on them from the South Col.
After twelve days of this, George Lowe was exhausted. But on 21 May, Annullu and Wilfrid Noyce finally managed to cross the difficult snow slope and reach the South Col, at 7,925 metres.
Next day, Hillary, Tenzing, and seventeen Sherpas followed them up to the South Col. The Sherpas had only a cup of tea for breakfast at Camp 7, after a long cold night.
They were carrying loads of 22 kilograms with no oxygen. At the South Col, they made Camp 8. Then, the same day, they went down again to Camp 4. They had climbed for ten hours with no food or drink all day.
But Camp 8, on the South Col, was ready at last. Now the attempt on the summit could begin.