Everest - The First Ascent: How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain (55 page)

33 Pugh 1942, p. 6.

12.
Opposition and Suspicion

1 RGS/EE/68.2: Letter, Goodfellow to Hunt, September 25, 1952.

2 Ibid.: Letter, Hunt to Goodfellow, September 30, 1952.

3 RGS/EE/66.8.

4 RGS/EE/68.4: December 17, 1952.

5 RGS/EE/90.Himalayan Committee correspondence 1952: Letter, dated June 8, 1952.

6 See Younghusband’s speech delivered to the RGS in November 1921, printed in Geographical Journal Vol. LV111, No. 6, December 1921.

7 Quoted in Lunn 1944, p. 45. Leslie Stephen was apparently reading a paper on the first ascent of the Zinalrothorn to an Alpine Club audience.

8 Tilman 1948, p. 110.

9 AC Lloyd Papers P5 (3), “Note 4.”

10 AC B 84 X11.

11 AC P 11: Letter, Norton to Hunt, January 6, 1953.

12 RGS/EE/75.Report on Apparatus: Letter, Scott Russell to Hunt, December 8, 1952. Finch had been objecting to the closed-circuit since it was first brought in, in 1936, arguing that it was bound to fail since it did not make use of the oxygen in the atmosphere, and claiming that its introduction had led to a “wasteful division of effort” between the two different oxygen systems.

13 Ibid.

14 RGS/EE/68.2: Letter, Wylie to Hunt, October 3, 1952.

15 Ibid. Hunt wrote to Lloyd: “I am very keen that [Tom] Bourdillon should be kept sweet, i.e., by
continuing
his present work, but
answering
to the Himalayan Joint Committee
through you
[Hunt’s own underlinings].”

16 RGS/EE/75.Unmarked file: The memo, dated October 22, 1952, told Hunt that Lloyd was permitted to express his views “with reference to the practical viewpoint, but must abide by majority decisions of the [High-Altitude] Committee.” Letters between Pugh’s boss, Edholm, and Sir Harry Himsworth (head of the MRC) show that Lloyd’s unwillingness to subject himself to the HAC caused worries at the MRC, but was eventually resolved. On October 30, 1952, Edholm wrote to Himsworth: “Since I spoke to you last week about some of the apparent complications between the HAC and the Himalayan Committee things have improved. Lloyd, who was appointed oxygen controller by the Himalayan Committee, has clearly realised that he must not make decisions without the consent of the HAC” (see also TNA FD1/9042).

17 193,000 liters compared with 20,000 liters taken by the Swiss in the autumn of 1952, and 29,000 liters taken by the British in 1922. See account in Pugh 1954c.

18 Having seen Pugh’s research, Lloyd produced his own oxygen recommendations for Hunt (see RGS/EE/68.2). Lloyd envisaged a summit assault direct from the South Col by a party who had used night oxygen. He thought they should breathe oxygen at a normal rate of 3 liters a minute, and 5 liters for the more difficult “pitches.” Anticipating an overall breathing rate of 100 liters a minute when using oxygen, he predicted that climbers at 29,000 feet would be at equivalent altitudes, respectively, of 22,000 feet with supplementary oxygen at 3 liters a minute, and 18,500 feet with oxygen at 5 liters a minute. Because Lloyd’s assumptions were not based on empirical tests, he thought climbers would be able to climb faster—at 750 feet per hour using oxygen—than Pugh expected, and therefore would need to take less oxygen with them than Pugh claimed. Pugh for his part had found that performances in the field on a given flow rate of oxygen fell far short of that expected from the equivalent altitude, which was merely a “convenient abstraction.” He gave the example of Tom Bourdillon breathing 100 percent oxygen (a pressure higher than that present in air at sea level). Despite the amount of oxygen available, Bourdillon’s intake of oxygen remained stubbornly lower than his intake of oxygen at sea level, so he did not benefit as much from the available extra oxygen as Lloyd would have assumed. See Pugh’s article, “Everest 53, Physiological Notes” in RGS/EE/75.Physiological Effects of Altitude.

19 RGS/EE/99: Meeting of the Himalayan Committee of November 27, 1952.

20 RGS/EE/75.Coordination. In 1957 Pugh referred to his argument with Lloyd in an article published in the
Journal of Physiology
(Pugh 1958), writing that to have based the oxygen requirements for 1953 on theoretical assessments of likely climbing speed and efficiency “would have led to a grossly inadequate supply of oxygen being taken. This mistake was made on previous expeditions to Mount Everest and led to arguments between physiologists and engineers [i.e., Lloyd] at the planning stage of the 1953 Everest expedition over the amount of oxygen to be sent out with the expedition and the rates of climbing to be expected from its use.”

21 A letter from Pugh to Lloyd, December 13, 1952, details the faults in the Swiss apparatus (PP 35.21). An earlier letter from Pugh to “John Brown,” dated August 11, 1952, says: “The Swiss were advised by Roxburgh that the set was unsuitable; however, they took it. It does not seem to have been usable at high altitude and the final attempt was made virtually without oxygen” (PP 35.21). See also West 2003. The system was chosen by Oscar Wyss, a physiologist from the University of Geneva. It was modified from an American device called the Chemox system. Besides the high resistance to breathing, the mouthpiece was rigid, preventing the head from moving so the climber couldn’t look around to select the best footholds. The failure of the equipment is not usually highlighted in English or American accounts of the first Swiss Everest attempt. For example, Isserman and Weaver 2008, p. 273, state that Tenzing and Lambert continued with their summit attempt until their oxygen ran out. The authors apparently overlooked the fact that the Swiss oxygen sets could only be used when they were not climbing. The body doesn’t store oxygen, so Lambert and Tenzing effectively climbed without oxygen and stopped, as they themselves testified, because they became exhausted.

22 From a taped conversation John Cotes kindly undertook with me at his home in Durham in December 2004.

23 Pugh 1952, p. 27; for example, Pugh suggested removing the cheek valves to reduce the resistance to breathing still further.

24 “Man at High Altitude,” delivered by Finch on June 6, 1952, to the Royal Society (Finch 1952, p. 13). In addition, Lloyd wrote to Pugh in December 1952, raising doubts about his Cho Oyu findings and pointing to the failure of the Swiss oxygen. “I would like to be sure that we are not making a similar mistake in testing and developing the new mask.” Pugh wrote a detailed letter back, explaining point by point the problems with the Swiss oxygen equipment (see PP 35.21). Lloyd still preferred the tubes.

25 RGS/EE/75.HAC. For example, see note of December 13, 1952, in which Matthews wrote sarcastically to Hunt that he was sorry that Hunt had been unable to attend the recent High-Altitude Committee meeting because “you weren’t reminded until the last moment, but I cannot agree that the notice of the meeting was short, since this date was arranged at your request at the meeting of November 24th.” Matthews also noted with disapproval that the absence of the oxygen controller [Lloyd] had meant that “we couldn’t discuss oxygen.”

26 RGS EE 75/HAC: Letter, dated January 21, 1953.

27 Pugh quoted in Venables 1998, p. 48. Among the climbers, Hillary made the point that he did not believe Hunt was an essential ingredient to the Everest team in several publications, including in
View from the Summit,
Hillary 1999, p. 107. Shipton’s biographer, Peter Steele 1998, p. 199, reported that Wylie, Ward, Gregory, Hillary, and Lowe told him in personal interviews that they believed they would have done just as well with Shipton in charge.

28 Shipton 1953, p. 137: Talk given at a meeting of the RGS on December 22, 1952.

29 PP 35.10: Letter, dated December 30, 1952.

30 RGS/EE/75.Inclusion of physiologist. After soundings taken by Kirwan, the Royal Society grant to pay for Pugh’s research was confirmed on December 11, 1952, shortly after it became known that the Swiss autumn expedition had failed.

31 Hunt 1953, p. 8.

32 RGS/EE/67.5.

33 RGS/EE/66.5.

13.
The Trek from Kathmandu

1 Tenzing said afterward that he refused to accept a bed out of solidarity with his fellow Sherpas.

2 In his autobiography (Ullman 1955, p. 232), Tenzing related how the Sherpas were upset because Hunt proposed to depart from the norm by not issuing their high-altitude gear until they got to Solu Khumbu, and was not intending to allow them to keep it—at least not as of right. They were also affronted because the Sherpas were to eat different food from the Europeans.

3 Perhaps long experience of being employed as guides themselves gave the Swiss a sensitive understanding of how to make a success of the relationship with their Sherpas. “Over the years,” Tenzing told Ullman in 1954, “I had liked the Swiss tremendously; I felt truly close to them and thought of them not as Sahibs or employers but as friends, and that is how it has been ever since” (Ibid., p. 111).

4 The article, based on an hourlong interview with Tenzing—one of Izzard’s dispatches to the
Daily Mail
—was syndicated to the
Statesman
of Calcutta and New Delhi (see Izzard 1955, p. 95).

5 NIMR. DO2 MRC Himalayan Expeditions 1952/3: Letter, Pugh to Edholm, April 21, 1953.

6 HTP: Letter, Pugh to Josephine, March 10, 1953.

7 The late Charles Wylie, who kindly gave me a taped interview at his home in May 2004, described Pugh as “a boffin with his head way up in the clouds and very absentminded.”

8 Noyce 1954, p. 20.

9 Pugh’s Everest Diary, March 13, 1953. In the 1950s Sherpas would have been insulted to have been described as “coolies,” but joined with the British in describing as such the low-altitude porters who were mostly Nepalese. Today, the low-altitude porters also feel insulted by the term. See Ullman 1955, in which Tenzing describes the term as having “a connotation so menial and slave-like that it is greatly resented if it is used by Westerners.”

10 HTP: Letter, Pugh to Josephine, March 23, 1953.

11 Pugh in Hunt 1953, p. 275.

12 George Band explained to me that “In those days we thought it really sissy and unnecessary bulk/weight to take out tables and chairs.”

13 AC P11, Letter, Hunt to his wife, March 16, 1953.

14 See Young 1949: chapter on “Management and Leadership,” especially p. 30. Passages in Hunt’s book,
The Ascent of Everest,
echo very closely passages in
Mountain Craft,
such as Hunt’s claim on p. 6 that “The opponent was not other parties but Everest itself,” as compared with Young’s assertion that “The hills are our opponents, not other climbers, or even other nations” (Young 1949, p. 3).

15 From my interview with Charles Wylie in 2004.

16 The work-rate tests referred to in this context measure the amount of oxygen that is extracted from the air by the subject working at full tilt.

17 Hunt 1953, p. 71.

18 PP 35.13 Pugh Everest Diary, March 13, 1953.

19 Charles Evans’s Everest Diary, June 10, 1953. Denise Evans kindly allowed me to read this diary when I visited her at her home in Capel Curig, Caernarfonshire, in December 2005.

20 Hillary 1975, p. 147.

21 Noyce 1954, p. 20.

22 Ward 1972, p. 109. Ward wrote that Tom Bourdillon “was furious both with himself for not checking the bottles regularly, and with the engineering standards that permitted such a defect.” The engineering standards had been Lloyd’s responsibility.

23 HTP Pugh’s draft book, p. 34. Pugh notes that of the 198,000 liters of oxygen sent out with the 1953 expedition, 23,400 liters were lost due to leakage from cylinders in transit. After the successful ascent, only 15,600 liters remained unused, which “would scarcely have supplied a third assault had the second party failed to reach the summit.”

24 Stobart 1958, p. 218.

25 NIMR. DO2 MRC Himalayan Expeditions 1952/3: Letter, Pugh to Edholm, April 21, 1953.

26 Pugh noted on April 7 that the climbers had used open- and closed-circuit oxygen from 17,000 to 19,000 feet, at flow rates between 2.5 and 3 liters a minute, and confirmed that the oxygen reduced fatigue and increased energy but not climbing rates. They found no difference at this stage between closed-circuit and open-circuit.

27 Lowe 1959, p. 28.

28 Hillary 1975, p. 145. Another example, from Hillary 1999, p. 100, concerns Charles Evans during the Cho Oyu expedition. Hillary wrote: “I had always regarded Charles as a very calm and non-competitive person but I suddenly realised he was rapidly overtaking me and it was turning into a race. It was too good an opportunity to miss. As we flew down, one false step would have been disastrous for us both, but when I managed to pull away from Charles, we both dropped down to a safer and more sensible pace.” Geoffrey Young’s section on “walking manners” in
Mountain Craft
has some very strict things to say about climbers “afflicted” with the “racing” or “passing” manias (see Young 1949, p. 30).

29 NIMR. DO2 MRC Himalayan Expeditions 1952/3: Letter, Pugh to Edholm, April 21, 1953.

30 Stobart 1958, p. 223.

31 Pugh Everest Diary, April 13, 1953.

32 Stobart 1958, p. 228.

33 Ibid.

34 Izzard 1959, p. 170.

35 Stobart 1958, p. 229.

14.
The Triumphant Ascent

1 i.e., on April 21 and 22.

2 Pugh Everest Diary, March 12, 1953.

3 Everest Diary, April 12, 1953: These were made by the firm Frankenstein and Sons in cooperation with Pugh.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Pugh Everest Diary, April 24, 1953.

7 Ibid., April 22, 1953.

8 Ibid., April 24, 1953.

9 NIMR MRC Himalayan Expeditions 1952/3: Letter, Pugh to Edholm, April 21, 1953.

10 Ibid.

11
Pugh Everest Diary, May 5, 1952.

12 PP 35.13.

13 NIMR. DO2 MRC Himalayan Expeditions 1952/3: Letter, Pugh to Edholm, May 4, 1953.

14 Both men returned to the Western Cwm having recovered, but neither managed to get as high as the South Col in 1953. Hunt wrote afterward, looking back at the acclimatization period, “I had the impression then, which was strengthened later, that the two newcomers to the Himalaya, George Band and Michael Westmacott, had found the altitude telling on them more than the rest of us” (Hunt 1953, p. 84).