Final steps to the top of the world

By TIM WATKIN

THE 1953 expedition set out from Kathmandu on March 10, taking 17 days to walk to the Himalayas. The weather was warm and spirits were high.

They set up a temporary base camp at Thyangboche monastery. Between March 30 and April 6, they split into small groups and went climbing to adjust to the high altitude. All the party climbed peaks around 6100m.

In a second acclimatisation period, from April 9, Hillary led a party to reconnoitre the Khumbu Icefall. Establishing a supply route through that icy minefield was going to be crucial. With rest periods in between, the party then had to find routes through the Western Cwm, a valley of ice, and up the exposed Lhotse Face.

On May 7, expedition leader Sir John Hunt gathered the team into the mess tent and announced what each of their tasks would be on the final leg. His plan was for two teams to try for the summit. First, Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon, with Bourdillon's experimental closed-circuit oxygen apparatus, would push for the South Summit and on to the top if strength and time allowed. The second, and more likely summitting team, would be Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. The expedition's other New Zealander, George Lowe, was told to find a route up the Lhotse Face to the South Col.

Hillary and Lowe were the best ice climbers. Hillary was also the fittest.

After a fortnight of bad luck and worse weather, when the expedition was stuck on Lhotse, Wilfrid Noyce and Sherpa Annullu reached the South Col on May 21. The path to the top was in place.

Evans and Bourdillon made their attempt from the Col on May 26. Passing the point that the Swiss expedition's assault team - Ray Lambert and Tenzing Norgay - reached a year before, at 1pm they became the first to the South Summit.

Faced with the agonising decision of whether to go on or return, they argued. Bourdillon - younger, stronger - wanted to go on.

Evans agreed they could probably make the top, but would never see their families again. There would not be time to get down. Reluctantly, they turned back to their colleagues at Camp VIII.

On the 27th, the team was marooned in a sea of ice and wind. Evans and Bourdillon were in a bad way and someone needed to go down with them. Hunt felt it his duty to stay to co-ordinate the last push, and ordered Lowe to go, but Lowe protested, rightly pointing out that Hunt was exhausted and would be no use helping the second team on their way. Admirably, Hunt saw that Lowe was right and retired to Camp VII.

On May 28 the crew set out, Lowe and Alfred Gregory leading the way, cutting steps for Hillary and Tenzing. With several Sherpas sick, they were each carrying 18kg to 24kg - vastly more than the 7kg Hunt had decided was the maximum.

By 2.30pm, however, they had established Camp IX and the support pair left Hillary and Tenzing high on a tiny rocky outcrop, set to make their attempt at the top the next day.

Rising at 4am to minus 27-degree temperatures, the pair set out into the unknown at 6.30am. The experts doubted anyone could survive at the summit. Despite that, Hillary says he was not frightened as he began taking the slow, laboured steps up the slope from their camp.

"I wasn't particularly scared. There were parts of the climb, particularly the long snow slope leading up to the South Summit, where the snow was very soft and you'd sometimes slide back and you were worried a little bit about avalanche danger and, I suppose you could say, a little bit nervous."

Hillary, in the lead on that long slope, cut a step only to see it break off and go plunging thousands of feet down the mountainside.

"Tenzing was just down behind me and I turned to him and said: 'What do you think? Should we continue on this route?' And he gave a very Sherpa reply, in that he didn't say anything for a moment and then he said: 'Just as you like'. That's a very Sherpa reply."

Did he seriously consider turning round?

"Oh, I was determined to go on no matter what, actually. I had the feeling in my mind, you know: 'This is Everest, you've got to give it a bit of a push.' So on we went."

What if Tenzing had said no? "For some reason, I knew he wouldn't say that," Hillary says, grinning widely. "My emotional state was pretty strong. I didn't know whether we could get to the top, obviously. I really had the feeling we were going to get a long way. We were a good team and, who knows, if all went well we might get to the summit."

But all didn't go well. Above the South Summit they were confronted with a rock step - more than 12m high and with no obvious hand-holds. Hillary anxiously surveyed the barrier and, on the right-hand end, spotted a cornice - an overhang of ice.

"This cornice, in preparation for its inevitable crash down the mountainside, had started to lose its grip on the rock and a long narrow vertical crack had been formed between the rock and the ice," Hillary later wrote in his memoir High Adventure.

Risking all, Hillary squeezed inside the crack, face to the rock, and began levering himself up. The cornice held and after a few minutes he was at the top of what is now called the Hillary Step.

Tenzing followed, and the pair pushed on, more confident now. On they struggled, each step like a mile in the thin air until Hillary realised there were no more ridges above the one they were climbing.

"A few more whacks of the ice-axe, a few very weary steps, and we were on the summit of Everest."

It was 11.30am, May 29, 1953. The duo spent minutes on the summit, with mixed feelings of relief and "a deep satisfaction". Hillary took Tenzing's photo - the reason there's no photo of Hillary is that he realised on top that Tenzing didn't know how to use a camera, and that was no place to learn.

Tenzing buried some small offerings - biscuits, chocolate and sweets - to his Buddhist gods and Hillary added a small cross given to him by Hunt.

They didn't talk on the way down, all their remaining energy focused on getting down safely.

On June 1, Hillary wrote to his mother in Auckland: "Well, I may not have produced much joy or happiness in the world but at least I've helped make the Hillary name a bit famous. It was a tremendous thrill to me to reach the summit of Everest, especially as I was going particularly well."