Everest - The First Ascent: How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain
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Authors: Harriet Tuckey
EVEREST
:
THE
FIRST
ASCENT
EVEREST
:
THE
FIRST
ASCENT
How a Champion of Science
Helped to Conquer the Mountain
HARRIET
TUCKEY
Copyright © 2013 by Harriet Tuckey
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, PO Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.
Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.
Project editor: Meredith Dias
Layout: Melissa Evarts
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN 978-0-7627-9192-7
Printed in the United States of America
E-ISBN: 978-0-7627-9429-4
For Netia, Lizzie, and Rosie
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Anniversary Lecture
15 A Gulf of Mutual Incomprehension
18 “Your Natures Are So Completely Different”
21 “Only If I Have Complete Control”
24 “Gone to India. Your Dinner’s in the Oven”
27 “Good Science and Bad Science”
28 The “Boffin” and the Altitude Olympics
Epilogue: Expecting the Lion’s Share
LIST
OF
ILLUSTRATIONS
Map of the Three Expedition Routes
Griffith Pugh
BLACK-AND-WHITE PLATES
Some of the pictures are the author’s own, with details of exceptions listed below.
1. The Queen and the Everest team at the fortieth anniversary gala party in 1993 (©
John Cleare
).
2. Members of the 1953 Everest team at Bhadgaon near Kathmandu. Left to right, top row: Tom Stobart, Griffith Pugh, Wilfred Noyce, Charles Evans; middle row: George Band, Michael Ward, Ed Hillary, Tom Bourdillon, Mike Westmacott; bottom row: Alf Gregory, George Lowe, John Hunt, Tenzing Norgay, Charles Wylie (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
3. Part of the Everest Icefall, with climbers like ants in the vast landscape (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
4. Pugh in Switzerland in 1938.
5. The Hôtel des Cedres, Cedars, near Beirut (
courtesy of the Koorey family
).
6. The ski company moves off (
courtesy of the Koorey family
).
7. James Riddell, Chief Instructor at Cedars (
courtesy of the Koorey family
).
8. Eric Shipton (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
9. Michael Ward (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
10. Tom Bourdillon (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
11. George Band, the 1953 expedition joker (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
12. Tom Stobart (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
13. John Hunt, Ed Hillary, and Tenzing Norgay cope with the media at London Airport after the 1953 expedition (
Pathé News Ltd.
).
14. Pugh at the start of the 1953 expedition, telling the locals about his exceedingly large box of scientific equipment. (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
15. Illustration of closed- and open-circuit oxygen sets (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
16. Pugh working with a Scholander gas analyzer during the 1953 expedition (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
17. Hillary putting on his high-altitude boots (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
18. The acclimatization camp at Thyangboche, March 1953.
19. Pugh at Camp Three, testing the air in the bottom of John Hunt’s lungs (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
20. Hillary and Tenzing approaching 28,000 ft (8,534 m) on Everest (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
21. Tenzing on the summit of Everest (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
22. The Silver Hut (
Michael Gill
).
23. The Nepalese pilgrim, Man Badhur, eating a glass pipette.
24. Skiing scientists of the Silver Hut winter party. Left to right: Jim Milledge, John West, Griffith Pugh, Michael Ward, and Mike Gill (
Michael Gill
).
25. Pugh in the laboratory shed by the running track in Mexico City with Mike Turner on the stationary bicycle. (©
Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans
).
26. Marathon swimmer Jason Zirganos (©
AP/Press Association Images
).
27. Pugh and a colleague experimenting with Mike Turner (
John Brotherhood
).
28. Doey in Switzerland in the mid-1930s.
29. One of the few photographs of Griffith and Doey together, seen here on the garden steps of Hatching Green House.
30. Griffith greeting his daughter, Harriet, age six, at London Airport after his return from Everest (©
Royal Geographical Society
).
31. Putteridgebury, Doey’s family home.
Introduction
The Anniversary Lecture
Seldom since Francis Drake brought the
Golden Hind
to anchor at Plymouth Sound has a British explorer offered to his Sovereign such a tribute of glory as Colonel John Hunt and his men were able to lay at the feet of Queen Elizabeth for her Coronation Day.
—
T
HE
T
IMES,
J
UNE 2, 1953, COMMENTING ON THE
RECENT “CONQUEST” OF
M
OUNT
E
VEREST
One evening in May 1993, I found myself struggling to push my father, in a borrowed wheelchair, into the crowded lecture hall of the Royal Geographical Society, my mother following close behind. Forcing our way through throngs of people, we moved him toward a row of seats near the front that had been reserved for the members of the 1953 expedition to Mount Everest. My father, Dr. Griffith Pugh, had been the oldest member of the expedition. The lecture we were about to hear was a celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the “conquest” of Everest.
1
I was only six in 1953, but I can still remember the euphoric public reaction to the news of the British triumph. Everest was climbed on May 29. The story was rushed home in the greatest secrecy, but then held back and released on June 2 in a blaze of nationalistic publicity on the morning of the coronation of the youthful Queen Elizabeth. It seemed as if the Everest prize was being laid at the feet of our new Queen to remind her of the underlying greatness of her loyal subjects, crushed by postwar austerity and the loss of empire. Young boys felt surging pride and patriotism. It was a cheering, uplifting moment, and now it was being celebrated, forty years on, with an illustrated lecture given by members of the expedition, to be followed by a glittering reception, at which Queen Elizabeth would be the guest of honor.