Everest: Expedition to the Ultimate

Everest

Everest

Expedition to the Ultimate

Reinhold Messner

Translation by Audrey Salkeld

www.v-publishing.co.uk

.

I wanted to climb high again

in order to see

deep inside myself

– Contents –

Acknowledgements

Everest 2000

Everest as Consumable

The Idea

From Idea into an Ideal

With or Without Face Masks?

The Attempts of Norton and Mallory

Disappeared

Everest without Oxygen ’78

Fanatics, Charlatans and Conquerors

The Mountain

Dawa Tensing’s Hat

What If … ?

Yak and Yeti

In the Icefall

Camp Work – Camp Life

Collapse of the Ice Wall

Quite Alone

The Yellow Band

Buried Alive

A Whisky Bottle Full of Blood

At Death’s Door

Impossible

Everyone wants to go the Summit

The First Summit Success

Failure

To Be or to Have

Casting Adrift

To the Ultimate Point

An Eight-Thousander, a Hospital and a Wine Cellar

An Empty Void

Everest Chronicle

Everest Chronicle

The Chinese 1960 Everest Climb

The Expeditions (1921-1978)

Successful Ascents (1953-1999)

1953: The Top of the Pyramid

1963: The First Traverse

1969-75: To the South-west Face

1975: Two Women on the Roof of the World

Austrian Alpine Club 1978 Everest Expedition

Photographs

– Acknowledgements –

The author wishes to thank Anders Bolinder and Ulrich Link for early work on the ‘Everest Chronicle’; Xavier Eguskitsa, Elizabeth Hawley and Eberhard Jurgalski for recent facts in listings in editions of Peter Gillman’s Everest book and the American Alpine Journal, the Himalayan Journal and other sources.

Photos used in the book: Leo Dickinson, M. Rönnau, Robert Schauer, J. Ullal. Other photos are from the archives of the author or publisher. G. Lange for his map illustration, W. Quitta for his sketches and other illustrations.

From many sources the author wishes to note: Everest: Eighty Years of Triumph and Tragedy Peter Gillman (Little Brown, London/New York); The Fight for Everest, 1924 E.F. Norton (Arnold, London/Longmans, NY 1925); Sturm auf der Throne der Götter (Gutenberg, Frankfurt, 1950).

– Everest 2000 –

Mount Everest continues to make negative headlines: as a ‘rubbish tip’, a ‘fatal magnet for adrenaline-freaks’, or as ‘an amusement park for tourists who have been everywhere else’. Ever since word got out that you could purchase ‘the climb of your dreams’, an ascent of the highest mountain of the world – revered as holy by those living to the south or north of 'Sagarmatha’ or‘ Qomolungma’ (its local names), it became transformed into a consumer product. In Kathmandu and Lhasa, government departments and service-providers benefit from an Everest boom built upon the mythology which, over almost eighty years, has grown around a couple of dozen expeditionary mountaineers from Mallory to Ang Rita.

Mount Everest tends to shrink in our imagination when we read it has been ‘conquered’ by a couple of hundred mediocre alpinists, who probably would not trust themselves to climb Mont Blanc without help; but then it grows again, if a half dozen of these trophy-hunters get themselves killed in the process, as happened in 1996 in the course of two commercial climbing trips organised by Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. Jon Krakauer has written a profound book upon the subject, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster. Despite this, the hordes came again the following year, and once more there were tragedies.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that humans cannot survive at heights approaching 9,000 metres. While more and more of us climb where we don’t belong, the accidents will go on increasing and, with them, because of them in fact, so will the desire to make such an attempt. Treading the footsteps of those before them, waiting in line at the Hillary Step below the summit, growing numbers of people clamber to heights that offer no retreat for the inexperienced when storm, mist or avalanche play havoc with fuddled brains. What makes Mount Everest so dangerous is not the steepness of its flanks, nor the vast masses of rock and ice that can break away without warning. The most dangerous part of climbing Mount Everest is the reduced partial pressure of oxygen in the summit region, which dulls judgment, appreciation, and indeed one’s ability to feel anything at all.

With modern, lightweight oxygen apparatus the mountain can be outwitted, but what happens when the bottles are empty, when descent through a storm becomes impossible, when you can’t go a step further? An Everest climb cannot be planned like a journey from Zurich to Berlin, and it doesn’t end on the summit. In any sports shop you can buy, for a price, the lightest equipment there is, but you cannot purchase survival strategy. The client surrenders responsibility for him- or herself to the guide – and the higher the mountain, the more personal responsibility is yielded up, even though this is the basic prerequisite for any mountain experience. And what happens when the leader gets into difficulty? Clients are left hanging in the ropes on a mountain they neither know nor understand.

This Everest is no longer the Everest of the pioneers. Increasingly the apex of vanity, it has also become a substitute for something the summit-traveller wants to flaunt on his lapel, like a badge, without taking any of the responsibility in the field.

The more Mount Everest is turned into a consumer article, the more importance attaches to the key moments of its climbing history – with or without supplemental oxygen. As the highest mountain in the world – for trekkers, climbers, environmentalists, and aid workers (to say nothing of undertakers) – it is guaranteed more publicity than other mountain. Its mythos is continually being misinterpreted, so that it becomes a mountain of fortune and fantasy even for those with no need to go there themselves. For them, I tell this story of climbing ‘by fair means’.

– Everest as Consumable –

Since the beginning of the 1990s more than a thousand people a year converge on the flanks of the world’s highest mountain: hundreds on the north side (Tibet), a few on the east side (Tibet), with the bulk continuing to approach from the south (Nepal). Although permits have become more expensive and parties are threatened with all sorts of restrictions, Mount Everest has degenerated into a ‘fashionable’ mountain. Dozens make it to the summit each year. The increase in numbers attempting the climb produces a correspondingly higher number of successes and, on top of that, with so many expeditions on the mountain simultaneously, the actual climbing has become far easier: the ice fall is protected with fixed ropes and ladders, the trail broken and marked, high camps established, so that the line of the route is obvious for most of the way to the summit. Today’s Everest climber is scarcely ever exposed or completely alone; he or she climbs in a crocodile formation. And any exceptions to this scenario are increasingly rare.

For the first time, in the spring of 1979, a Yugoslav expedition successfully climbed the very difficult West Ridge: over the Lho La, the West Shoulder, and directly up the rocky ridge to the summit.

In February 1980, two days after the winter climbing season ended ‘officially’, Polish mountaineers became the first to climb to the top of the world at the coldest time of year.

Russian mountaineers claimed the South Pillar in pre-monsoon 1982. Technically, this prominent rock buttress to the left of the South-west Face may well be the most difficult route on the mountain.

In 1983 a team of distinguished American mountaineers at last succeeded in finding a route up Everest’s East Face, known as the Kangshung Face.

The Great Couloir on the North Flank, between the North Ridge and a blunt pillar in the central section of the massive face, was climbed by an Australian team in 1984. Variations to the line were done later.

In 1988, ten years after the first ascent of the mountain without oxygen masks, Stephen Venables made it to the top of Everest after an incomparable achievement. Forming a small, unsupported expedition with Robert Anderson and Ed Webster, Venables struggled up a new line to the left of the American Route on the Kangshung Face. All three reached the South Col without supplemental oxygen, climbed higher and survived the panic of losing themselves at those forsaken heights. Venables reached the summit alone and, days later, despite frostbite and complete exhaustion, the crazy trio returned safely to base camp.

There are still possibilities of a pioneering nature waiting to be done on Mount Everest. Even today – should anyone be looking for them. But who cares to take on the challenge of exposure and loneliness away from the beaten track when the summit can be ‘bagged’ so much more easily?

In 1980 when I made my solo ascent during the monsoon period, there was not another soul anywhere above base camp. For five whole days I climbed in complete isolation, dependent solely on my own resources – and putting myself further from the inhabited earth with every upward step. My body was a wreck at the end of it; I survived despite myself, but as a worn-out shell.

By contrast, many of today’s Everest ‘conquerors’ are far better at managing their bodies than their minds. The preoccupation for this ‘no-limits’ generation is a quick thrill, rather than choosing the toilsome solitary path with its lengthy periods of sorrow and anguish. They race up prepared trails, ill acclimatised as often as not, from one established camp to the next, all the way to the airy encampment on the South Col. Sherpa Ang Rita, almost fifty years old, who has been to the top of Everest more times than anyone else, shows them the way from there. Some launch themselves back down again from the summit ridge with their parachutes, hang gliders, or skis.

As in the Alps, where it has become modish to rappel into wildwater ravines, bungee-jump, or to go for the short buzz of swarming up an overhang, wealthy, cosseted clients in the Himalaya hope that a dose of Everest will boost their endorphin levels. Without giving much thought to what they do, they follow a trend, an ideology which glorifies the physical and promises recognition as reward for overcoming fear. These people get recognition from others, but less of that feeling of self-worth which comes after putting weeks and months into something where you are dependent only upon yourself, and prey to hopes and doubts.

The kind of excitement offered by travel bureaus is gained for the least possible outlay (in all but monetary terms). The guide and the Sherpa assistants take responsibility not only for the camps, the route, and everyone’s safety, but also for the client’s enjoyment. The promoters of this ‘rapture-of-the-heights’ know well to let their clients believe that nothing can happen to them, even though they are climbing the same mountain as Hillary and Tenzing climbed in 1953.

More than a hundred people have been killed attempting Everest, including sixty Sherpas and other Nepalis, whose deaths are to be deplored as ‘industrial accidents’. A thousand people have reached the summit, 10 per cent of whom have climbed without oxygen masks, albeit frequently in the steps of trail-breakers who were using oxygen. To date, less than 5 per cent of the summiteers have been women, but this could be set to change, since women turn out to be stronger than men at high altitude.

The oldest person to get to the top was sixty years old, the youngest seventeen. All that’s lacking is for a couple to get married up there. Generations have moved on: Peter Hillary, the son of the first ascensionist, stood on the summit forty years after his father; the grandson of George Leigh Mallory went up in 1995, and Tenzing’s son made it in 1996.

Still, it is not the spirit of the times, nor mass tourism which keeps Everest at the forefront of fashion year by year. It is the hundreds of individuals who foster ambitions for their own personal summit experience.

The thirteen routes which have been established on the mountain so far provide room enough for many; and Mount Everest is only one among millions of high mountains – albeit a very special one. But all the while strings of climbers flock up one single route, the experience brought home from the roof of the world will diminish as each season passes.

Summit Report on Tape

For a better understanding of this book, it is important to know that during each of his climbs of Mount Everest, Reinhold Messner held in his hand a mini tape-recorder with which he recorded his feelings and impressions – all the way to the summit. He recorded conversations there as they took place. The 24-hour tapes were later typed up and then condensed by the author, but not essentially changed in regards to contents, speech, and testimony. This form of ‘on the spot’ reporting gives the book its character; through its absolute authenticity it produces essentials out of the discussion of incidentals. The immediacy and uncertainty of the climb come through in the conversations. In this way, Messner has preserved his experiences through the descent of Mount Everest and into the reading room. Conversations, as banal as they often may sound, were conducted at 8,000 and 8,500 metres above sea level exactly as they are written here. It would have been wrong to adorn them later with artistic words. Messner did not do that. Through this oral journal form, he has created a unique document that perhaps does not read smoothly, but in speech and detail could not have been recreated after the fact: a sincere and candid eyewitness account.

The Nature of the Account

An account of an expedition is not a novel. Therefore an authentic account can never be given, let alone written down, by someone who was not present. Any account of an expedition can be checked only by the people who took part in it, and is subject, first and foremost to their criticism. An account of an expedition must, above all, give a true rendering of the facts, and make it possible for all those who took part in it to identify with the tale that is told. That does not mean that there is only one true account of an expedition – there are as many versions of the truth as there are participants.

In the case of a novel any author has the right to project his personal experiences, perceptions and truths into a fictional tale.

An account of an expedition contains no fictional tales, nor any of the heroes of the novel.

The great art of writing the book of an expedition consists in recounting faithfully an actual and inextinguishable experience and in revealing one’s own feelings in the first person. If a man is not prepared to reveal anything, he has nothing to say.

Reinhold Messner

The Idea

– From an Idea into an Ideal –

To begin with, it was just a beautiful illusion, a fantasy, to imagine climbing the highest mountain in the world without technical assistance. But out of this illusion a concept grew and finally, a philosophy: can man, solely by his own efforts, reach the summit of Everest? Is the world so constructed that man can climb to its highest point without mechanical aids?

I don’t climb mountains simply to vanquish their summits. What would be the point of that? I place myself voluntarily into dangerous situations to learn to face my own fears and doubts, my innermost feelings.

The ‘adventure’ is immediately diminished as soon as man, to further his own ambition, uses technology as a hoist. Even the highest mountains begin to shrink if they are besieged by hundreds of porters, attacked with pegs and oxygen apparatus. In reaching for an oxygen cylinder, a climber degrades Everest to the level of a six-thousand metre peak.

The Himalayan pioneers ventured cautiously up into the great heights, groping their way, sometimes in small groups, sometimes alone. The fascinating tales they brought back of the loneliest regions of the world inspired other adventurers to follow their example. But they all lived in harmony with the mystery of the mountains. It was only with the nationalistic expeditions of the inter and post war years and their great emphasis on ‘conquest’, that the delicate balance between the adventurer and the ‘unknown’ was destroyed.

Some of the mystery ebbs with every expedition. A mountain region is soon exhausted when no rein is placed on technical assistance, when a summit triumph is more important to a mountaineer than self-discovery. The climber who doesn’t rely on his own strength and skills, but on apparatus and drugs, deceives himself.

The face mask is like a barrier between man and nature; it is a filter that hinders his visionary perceptions. An Everest ascent without using artificial oxygen is the only alternative to previous ascents, all of which were made with its help.

‘Everest by fair means’ – that is the human dimension, and that is what interests me.

Mountains are so elemental that man does not have the right nor the need to subdue them with technology. Only the man who chooses his tools with humility can experience natural harmony.

Suddenly, I begin to nurture this idea. I want to climb until I either reach the top of the mountain, or I can go no further. I feel so passionately about this that I am prepared to endure anything, to risk much. I am willing to go further than ever I have before. I am resolved, for this idea, to stake everything I have.

– With or Without Face Masks? –

The idea of attempting Mount Everest without oxygen apparatus is as old as the climbing history of this, the highest of all mountains. Even in 1922 on the second British expedition, the ‘with’ or ‘without’ question was hotly debated:

Everyone was agreed about the ultimate goal; the summit of the world! What they were divided about was what technical assistance they could employ to achieve it. The big obstacle, they knew, apart from the wind, was the thin air, the lack of oxygen, which would seriously limit a man’s capabilities. At that time, it wasn’t yet understood just how the human body could adapt. What more logical than to take to the mountain the oxygen that was lacking up there? That’s what airmen already did! Dr Kellas – who died on the march-in to Everest in 1921 – had made the first experiments with oxygen, but was unable to come to any conclusive opinion about it, as the big steel flasks that he took with him were too heavy and unwieldy. Besides this, there was strong prejudice in mountain climbing circles against the employment of oxygen; it was considered an unfair advantage in the struggle of man against mountain – a view that was shared by the Mount Everest Committee, which was comprised of representatives of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club. But Captain Finch and Howard Somervell argued so persuasively for it, that the committee allowed itself to be swayed.[1] Finch set about producing an apparatus that could be used by climbers and to some extent, he succeeded. He constructed a frame for the climber to carry on his back and which contained four cylinders of oxygen. Each cylinder was charged to a pressure of 120 atmospheres and each would last for about two hours. Copper tubes led the oxygen from the flasks to the climber’s chest, upon which a pressure gauge and flow meter were situated. Rubber tubes then conveyed the costly gas to the mask, which practically covered the whole face. Sadly, it later turned out that these masks were quite unsuitable in use, and Finch modified them, producing something significantly simpler and which stood up well. But although everything had been done to make the apparatus as light as possible, each climber still had to carry a load of something over 16 kilos.[2]

Two years later, in 1924, Lieutenant-Colonel E.F. Norton climbed without oxygen to a height of almost 8,600 metres above sea level, a record that lasted until 1978. Chinese climbers, who in 1975 followed the North Ridge route, reconnoitred by the British expeditions, and reached the summit of their Chomolungma (Qomolangma) – as Everest is known in Tibet – claimed not to have used oxygen during their climb but only partook of ‘oxygen inhalings’, that is to say, they breathed extra oxygen during their rest pauses from cylinders carried with them:

Without having a break and inhaling oxygen, they clambered for one and a half hours at 8,000 metres above sea level on Qomolangma Feng, although the air contained only one third of the normal amount of oxygen at sea level. At about 9.30, after a ten-minute rest on top of the ‘Second Step’, or the second major obstacle on the way up, they inhaled oxygen for two or three minutes at a flow of two to five litres per minute. The summiteers continued their clamber.[3]

It was apparent from the film they made at the time, that the Chinese all took doses of oxygen frequently.

1. Translator's note: It is true that Dr Somervell was a member of the Oxygen Committee in 1922. However, as a physiologist, and in any case being himself possessed of remarkable powers of endurance, he favoured an attempt without oxygen. Using it, he felt, would prevent the degree of acclimatization an individual could expect to acquire.[back]

2. Rudolf Skuhra: Sturm auf die Throne der Goiter, Buchergilde Gutenberg, Frankfurt 1950.[back]

3. Nine who climbed Qomolangma Feng – official Chinese report published in Mountain No. 46, 1975.[back]

– The Attempts of Norton and Mallory –

A few days before my departure for Nepal, I receive a letter from Richard Norton, son of the Everest pioneer who has strongly influenced my thinking.

Dear Mr Messner,

I was most interested to read a recent account in The Times of your and Mr Habeler’s forthcoming attempt to climb Mount Everest without oxygen. I should explain that I am the son of Colonel (as he then was) E.F. Norton, whose Everest attempt in 1924, when he reached a height of over 28,100 feet without oxygen, you have been quoting.

My father certainly believed that, given the right conditions Everest could be climbed without oxygen.

My mother and my two brothers join me in wishing Mr Habeler and you the best of luck. We shall be following the reports of your expedition with the greatest interest.

Yours sincerely,

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard P. Norton

It is true that E.F. Norton in his day believed that success without oxygen apparatus was possible and had written that he could see no reason why a well-trained, fully-acclimatised man should not climb Everest without oxygen assistance.

Packing for our expedition, I become oblivious of much that goes on around me, I stop reading the newspapers and frequently ignore the telephone, but whenever I find the time I re-read Norton’s account of his and Somervell’s attempt in 1924:[1]

Somervell and I started off from Camp III on1 June to follow in Mallory and Bruce’s steps. … The porters told off to accompany Somervell and me, and to establish our camp at 25,500 feet (7,800 metres), were six in number, and of these three were to come on to 27,000 (8,200 metres) …

At 3 p.m. (we) reached Camp IV, where Odell and Irvine took charge of us, allotted us tents and cooked and served us our meals, for they were now installed in their new role as ‘supporters’. …

The morning of 2 June broke fine, and by 6.30 Somervell and I were off with our little party of six porters. The reader will understand that Mallory and Bruce were to have established Camp V overnight; this morning they should have been heading up the North Ridge for Camp VI, carrying with them the tent and sleeping-bags in which they had slept the night before. Our loads, therefore, must comprise one 10-pound tent, two sleeping-bags, food and ‘meta’ (solid spirit) for ourselves for a possible three nights and for the porters for one; above the North Col porters’ loads were always cut down to a maximum of 20 pounds a man, preferably a little under that weight. I cannot remember the exact details of the