Lure of Everest

From the very first attempts to climb Mount Everest in the 1920s to the actual success in 1953, the world’s highest peak has always tempted mountaineers. Lt Gen Baljit Singh (retd) questions whether the carrying of the Olympic torch to the summit has demystified the spirit of adventure in conquering it

This photograph of Mount Everest was taken by Capt E.F. Norton on May 1, 1922

When in 1920 the Royal Geographical Society, London, (RGS) decided to sponsor the attempt on Mount Everest, the ethics of the sport had already been distilled over the previous 50 years of mountaineering in Europe. The essence of it lay in the subtlety that a team or a sportsman did not "conquer" but rather "summitted" a peak. Also mountaineering though a field sport but was strictly outside the ambit of podium finishes and competitiveness of the Olympic games.

The accompanying photograph of Mount Everest, which was taken by Capt E.F. Norton on May 1, 1922, is of historic significance. For barely two weeks later man would tread upon the virginal North-Col ridge of Everest for the first time in the recorded history of mountaineering.

By May 13, 1922, three Britons and several Sherpas had pioneered the route to the North-Col hump and set up an advance logistics camp. And on May 24 Captain Finch, Capt Geoffrey Bruce and Lance Naik Tejbir Bura (all from the Indian Army) climbed to 27,235 ft, the highest in the history of mankind. There ended the first honourable attempt to summit Mount Everest.

The world’s highest peak has fascinated mountaineers the world over

Brig General C.G. Bruce (Indian Army), leader of the expedition, would have liked to lead from the front but his age curbed his ambition beyond camp III. His orderly, Tejbir Bura (Ist Battalion 6 Gurkha Regiment) requested the expedition team to allow him to represent the 'sahib' on the first summit attempt and Bura indeed proved an admirable choice!

Fortified with this experience, the British were back once again. On June 3, 1924 Dr Howard Somervell and Captain Norton (Indian Artillery) climbed 28,123 ft but had to turn back as a result of sheer physical exhaustion. George Leigh Mallory and Andrew Irvine, who followed Somervell and Norton during the same expedition, were last spotted on June 8, 1924, about 1,000 feet below the summit. Thick clouds engulfed them and they were never seen again.

Did they summit the peak? The answer lies buried under the debris of avalanches and snow. Mallory's ice axe was per chance found in the 1930s and his body was found on the North ridge in the 1990s. But there is still no trace of the vest-pocket Kodak camera, which he had carried.

Despite four more expeditions and the loss of over 20 lives, the height attained by Somervell and Norton could not be bettered. Then followed a long lull, which included Second World War and the PLA conquest of the Tibet in 1950, which shuttered Tibet to the outside world.

In the 1950s the RGS once again revived pursuit of the Everest. Sir Eric Shipton, the doyen of British climbers, after a reconnaissance in 1951 pronounced that the South-Col approach though difficult, was not impossible. But India and Nepal were no longer under the Whitehall and Everest was not the sole monopoly of the British. So in 1952 the Swiss very nearly "snatched" the Everest summit; Raymond Lombart and Sherpa Sirdar Tenzing Norgay got to within 800 ft of the summit. Alarmed over this development the RGS gathered the strongest team of mountaineers and Sherpas, who at last summitted Mount Everest on May 29,1953.

The world applauded and feted this splendid success coming as it did after 32 years of relentless perseverance. But not China.

As a people the Chinese had neither the inclination nor the tradition of mountaineering. Yet they considered the British ascent of Everest a grave "loss of face" for China. It is believed that they press-ganged about 50 chosen PLA soldiers and party cadres and prepared them for the ascent. And like a sudden thunder-clap, in the third week of May 1960 the Chinese announced that they had summitted the Everest. But their claim failed to carry conviction with the mountaineering fraternity for several good reasons. For instance, they stated that their team, inspired by Chairman Mao Tse Tung, had climbed non-stop for a day and a night till they attained the summit.

Now where the ‘purists’ of the sport were concerned, they found much to doubt both the British and the Chinese ascents. For instance, it was abominable that the news of summitting on May 29, 1953 was not made public by the RGS till June 3, so as to coincide with the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Far more objectionable was the introduction of the cult of the podium finish to mountaineering through the pernicious question, "Did Edmund Hillary step on the summit first or Tenzing Norgay?"

On the other hand the Chinese stated that they had found the ‘third-step’ at around 28,000 ft, impossible to surmount. So they simply created a human pyramid against the rock-face, thus helping four ‘comrades’ to scramble up their shoulders and then go on to summit the Everest!

These new trends in mountaineering sport inspired a satirical novel The Ascent of Rum Doodle published in 1961. When the narrative reaches the Everest Base Camp, all sahib climbers are taken sick with dysentery. But the Sherpas are in no mood to allow them to abandon the expedition and thus lose several weeks of their wages. So they strap the sahibs to stretchers, make them hostages, but keep to the climbing itinerary of the expedition and ultimately deposit two of the sahibs (sans stretchers of course!) on the summit and proclaim the news of the ascent to the world!

But it was Reinhold Messner who took it upon himself to salvage the tarnished spirit of mountaineering. In the 1970s, Messner championed the cause for ascending the Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen, saying that he would do it ‘by fair means’ or not at all. In 1978, he reached the summit of Everest with Peter Habeler. He repeated the feat from the Tibetan side in 1980 during the monsoon season. This was Everest’s first solo summit. Aided by his girlfriend and two Sherpas, he stocked up the camp at North-Col. He then bade good-bye to all of them at this camp. Moving lightly and without oxygen, he set up one more camp close to where Somervell and Norton had reached in 1924. The next day, Messner summitted the Mount Everest and descended via the South Col.

Messner went on to summit the highest peaks (14 in all — each above 8,000 metres) in all five continents of the world, all solo and without oxygen. Incidentally, the next ascent of Everest by the Chinese in the mid 1960s was fully verifiable and acknowledged by the world fraternity.

Sadly, in the last three decades the ascent to the summit of Everest was first reduced to a vulgar commercial enterprise (US $ 60,000 per head) and then made a pawn of petty, political, power play. How the Chinese government ultimately carries the torch to the summit is a non-issue. The moot point, which remains unaddressed is whether in the process man would have simply vandalised the mystique surrounding the summitting of Mount Everest by sportsmen for ever?

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