A History of Porters on Everest: Part 5

In our previous post we discussed the 1930s on Everest, which saw the first solo attempt, however misguided, as well as the first time a non-European led a climb. In this post, the penultimate in this series, we will cover the early 1950s and finish with the first ascent (achieved by a Sherpa and a New Zealander) and demonstrate how the improving respect towards Sherpas, although imperfect, achieved something once thought impossible.

Postbellum: Everest After WWII

As described in our previous post, the 1930s saw several attempts on the mountain and the rise of Eric Shipton as the preeminent Everest mountaineer, having been on all four of the expeditions. He, together with Bill Tilman, Ang Tharkay, Pasang Bhotia and Kusang Namgir had discovered a route into the Sanctuary through the Rishi Ganga gorge, which allowed Tilman and Noel Odell to reach the summit for the first time in 1936 as part of an Anglo-American expedition. It was during this expedition that Shipton pioneered a light-weight style of expedition, in opposition to the large, military affairs which had previous dominated Himalayan mountaineering. This made him unpopular with some of the mountaineering establishment in London, many of whom were ex-military.

In 1945, the British Joint Himalayan Committee, the successor the Mount Everest Committee, made a request to Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India, to approve an attempt on Everest in 1947. This request was rejected due to the unrest that was currently sweeping India and would eventually lead to the Partition of India in 1947.

All expeditions to Everest had taken place via Tibet and the northern side of the mountain. This would change in 1949 when the Tibetan Government, alarmed by the recent communist gains in China, expelled all Chinese officials and closed its border to all foreigners. This preceded the 1950 Chinese occupation of Tibet where the borders were closed indefinitely. Meanwhile in 1946, the Rana Dynasty of Nepal was prompted by fears of a communist sponsored revolution to open diplomatic discussion

s with the United States. This ended a period of over one hundred years where neither explorers nor mountaineers had been allowed into the country. This opening eventually lead to Nepal granting permission for the 1950 French Annapurna Expedition, and to the first eight-thousander summit to be climbed. Attempting Everest from Nepal offered several advantages, namely the shorter journey to the mountain, the comparative lushness of the Khumbu compared to the barren Tibetan plateau and the increased sunshine to offset the cold during the climb. The only obstacle lay in the lack of knowledge about the southern route.

1950 Houston-Tilman Sol Khumbu Reconnaissance

All expeditions to Everest had previously started from Darjeeling and attempted the mountain from the Tibetan side. Now that this was no longer an option, the British Joint Himalayan Committee sought and was granted permission from the Nepali government to explore the Annapurna region at the same time as the French attempt on the mountain itself. While returning home after the expedition, Tilman met Oscar Houston in Kathmandu. Houston, a sixty-seven year old American, was planning a trekking holiday to explore the Solu Khumbu valley just south of Everest. The two had previously met when Houston’s son, Charlie, had participated in the British-American Himalayan Expedition to Nanda Devi in 1936. Houston invited him to join the party, and the group met up at Jogbani on October 29 1950. Accompanied by six Sherpas from Darjeeling, as well as an additional eighteen they picked up along the way, the group eventually made it to Namche Bazar. Tilman and Houston went on with four porters and arrived at the Tengboche Monastery, where they were the first Western visitors. Tilman found the monastery to be “incomparably more beautiful and less austere” than the Rongbuk Monastery in Tibet. From Tengboche, the pair ascended the Khumbu Glacier to about a mile from Lho La where they were able to see the path to the Western Cwm via the Khumbu Icefall. As they had limited time before they had to return, they ascended Kala Patar (5,545m) where Tilman managed to take a critical photograph of the area from 300m below the summit.

1951 British Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition

Tilman and Houston’s experience the year before provided photographic evidence that a route up the Western Cwm to the South Col appeared possible. On top of this, an Everest enthusiast named Michael Ward was studying photographs and maps in the Royal Geographic Society’s archives when he stumbled across several photographs taken clandestinely by the RAF in 1945. These photos showed the north face of Lhotse and the Western Cwm while another showed the Southeast Ridge stretching down from the summit to the South Col.

Using this photographic evidence, Ward convinced the Himalayan Committee to launch another reconnaissance expedition. Eric Shipton, having recently been expelled from his post as consul in Kunming, China, was persuaded to lead the expedition. Following his typical approach of small, lightweight expeditions, the team comprised Shipton, Tom Bourdillon, Bill Murray and Michael Ward. It was only after leaving Delhi that he agreed to accept two additional climbers from New Zealand, Earle Riddiford and Edmund Hillary, who had both recently competed an expedition in Garhwal Himalaya. The two climbers joined the group at Dingla, with Hillary quite nervous about meeting Shipton, the most famous living Himalayan mountaineer. He wrote later that “as we came into the room, four figures rose to meet us. My first feeling was one of relief. I had rarely seen a more disreputable bunch, and my visions of changing for dinner faded away for ever". The party was completed by the addition of Ang Tharkay, who was once again selected as Sirdar, along with twelve Sherpas.

Following the same route as Tilman and Houston, the group arrived at the upper Khumbu Glacier and on September 30 Shipton and Hillary climbed high enough up Pumori that they had the first proper view of the Western Cwm. The view was promising, as the cwm appeared to provide a path to the South Col, assuming navigating the icefall proved possible. On October 4 Shipton, Hillary, Riddiford and Bourdillon together with three Sherpas managed to navigate a path through the icefall and reach a point 9m below the top of the icefall when a relatively minor avalanche led Shipton to order a retreat. He was unwilling to risk losing the lives of inexperienced Sherpas, who could not make an informed decision regarding the risks involved. Shipton concluded that a possible route had indeed been found, but he still wanted to determine if there were alternative routes to the top from the east or west.

The group then split with Ward, Bourdillon, Riddiford and Murray trekking west seeking the Chola Khola valley, which they believe contained a pass into Tibet. Their maps proved to be inaccurate and instead they found themselves on the Ngojumba glacier, which is the main source of the Dudh Khosi River at the base of Cho Oyu. They travelled north, along Cho Oyu’s eastern face but failed to see a route to the top and returned to Namche Bazar, improving the maps of the Chola Khola region along the way. Meanwhile, Shipton and Hillary travelled east along the Imja glacier, at the foot of the Lhotse-Nuptse wall, hoping to find a pass to the Barun glacier. After failing to find a crossing, they followed the Hongu glacier until they eventually reached the Barun, before they returned to the Khumbu via the southern ridge of Ama Dablam.

The reunited team then once again attempted to climb the Khumbu icefall, this time reaching the top only to discover a ninety metre crevasse separating the icefall from the Western Cwm. They retreated, believing that conditions would prove more stable during a springtime expedition, following the consolidation of the winter snows.

The party returned to Kathmandu via the Gaurishankar range, a region previously unexplored by Westerners. One group travelled north and crossed the Nangpa La into Tibet and spotted two possible routes up the northwest face of Cho Oyu, while another group discovered and named Menlungste (7,181m), the highest mountain of the Rolwaling Himal. It was during this journey that the group discovered and photographed animal tracks which they could not identify, but which Sherpas believed belonged to a Yeti.

The stage was set for a British attempt in 1952, however Nepal had already accepted a Swiss application as well as a French for 1954. Shipton travelled to Zurich to share his findings with the Swiss, and while ideas of a combined Swiss-British expedition were floated they never eventuated. Instead, Nepal granted the British permission to attempt Cho Oyu in 1952 followed by Everest in 1953, which ultimately favoured the British as this provided them the opportunity to trial new oxygen equipment and train members for the 1953 attempt.

Coming in the part 6, we will cover the expeditions of 1952 and the 1953 British Everest Expedition, which saw Tenzing and Hillary realise a dream thirty years in the making.

Image: The "Yeti" tracks discovered in 1951.