Hidden heroes behind Hillary

By BRONWYN SELL from LONDON

THE Himalayas were George Lowe's idea. The lanky teacher was walking down the Tasman Glacier when he turned to his climbing partner, a similarly-built beekeeper's son from Tuakau. "Have you ever thought of going to the Himalayas, Ed?"

The thought had crossed Edmund Hillary's mind.

That conversation started the pair on a path to the summit of Everest.

As Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was throwing his arms around Hillary, Lowe was waiting 300m below with British climber Wilf Noyce and Sherpa Pasang Phutar. Below them at Camp VII were another Brit, Charles Wylie, and half a dozen Sherpas. At Camp V waited a group of Sherpas.

Further down, at Advanced Base Camp, waited British expedition leader John Hunt and most of the rest of the team: Tom Bourdillon, George Band, Alf Gregory, Dr Michael Ward and physiologist Dr Griffith Pugh. Lower still, Michael Westmacott was keeping open the notorious Khumbu Icefall - the supply and escape route.

They were among the most respected mountaineers of their time, almost all capable of having a crack at the summit.

Lowe, now 79, calls it a " tightly combined effort".

He describes the expedition as a pyramid, with Base Camp at the bottom. For Hillary and Tenzing to stand at the top, there had to be support at every tier.

"The world knows Hillary climbed Everest, but they don't know Band did, or Westmacott. Ed's stayed with this big name. That doesn't upset us, but it is a pity that in the American versions there were only two people. But it was a big team effort."

Lowe puts great weight on those words. "Big. Team. Effort."



Lowe and his wife, Mary, set up the British branch of Hillary's Himalayan Trust when he retired 14 years ago. He donates money he makes from speaking about Everest to Hillary's cause.

As in 1953, the expedition members are dividing the work for the 50th anniversary. But there are fewer to bear the load. Bourdillon, the first to make a break for the summit, was the first to die - in 1956, while attempting a route on the Jagihorn, in the Bernese Oberland. Noyce's nemesis, six years later, was Mt Garmo in Tajikistan. Sherpa Ang Nyima, Tenzing and Stobart died in the 1980s, Hunt, Charles Evans and Pugh in the 1990s.

Gregory now lives in Melbourne, Wylie in Wales, Hillary in New Zealand and Band, Lowe, Ward and Westmacott in England.

They were chosen for the expedition because they were each capable of reaching the summit. Lowe is glad he didn't. "I wouldn't have been able to support it like Hillary has managed to make a life out of it. You don't want to be hung with Everest for the rest of your life. I know he's an international icon but it's damned difficult. But Ed really set to and has had to make it work, and I don't think I've got that quality."

Westmacott, too, is happy for Hillary to shoulder the glory, if it means he takes the public attention.

"I don't envy him that side of things, except that I'd like to have got to the top, as we all would."

He laughs heartily and his small, 78-year-old body shakes inside his knitted jumper. A genial man, he admires the way Hillary has handled fame.

"He's used his celebrity to do a lot of good to the Sherpas."



In Lowe's study, the walls host a gallery of his life - photos and paintings of Everest, the Southern Alps, Antarctica, the West Coast of New Zealand where he was born, his three sons, and Hillary and his second wife June on their wedding day. (Lowe was best man at Hillary's first wedding and is godfather to his son, Peter.)

"There's Mt Lowe," he says, pointing to a framed map of Antarctica, which he and Hillary crossed in 1957. "I'd forgotten about that," he smiles, as if having a mountain named after you is inconsequential.

The Lowes have just moved into their home in the stone-cottaged village of Holloway, Derbyshire. Aptly, they live on High Lane. "A steep climb from the village" were Lowe's directions.

From a box in the garage, he sweeps up his ice axe, complete with dents from Hillary's crampons. He swings it with the gusto of days past.

"That's for dealing with snow [he points to one end of the head], and that's for dealing with ice, and chipping ice. You'd do a bang, bang, bang then chop it out. You'd also use it for a walking stick. And when you come to a piece of ice that's very high, you can ram this into it as hard as you can and then use it as a footstep, or as a step down, and that's when Hillary's crampons started taking pieces out of it, and I abused him for that," he laughs.

"They don't cut steps any more. They have special big crampons and things of that sort. The whole business has changed."

His skill with an ice axe is legendary, and Hillary refers often to Lowe in his autobiographies as a tower of strength.

"Calm and competent, he rode through the storm like a great ocean liner. With his strong hand on the rope, I knew I couldn't fall far."

But it was Lowe's skill with an axe, honed in the Southern Alps where he met Hillary, that disqualified him from reaching Everest's summit. His expert blows made him indispensable to the preparation. He literally carved a path up the mountain for his friend.

And he was waiting with a flask of soup when Hillary and Tenzing returned.

"We knocked the bastard off," said Hillary. "Yeah, I thought you had," said an equally laconic Lowe.

Westmacott says it was obvious early in the expedition that Hillary and Lowe had impressive skills.

"We all knew those two, particularly Ed, had a tremendous record, so they would've been high in the selection process, and when Hunt outlined the plan, with the first attempt being made by Bourdillon and Evans with this experimental oxygen set, and the main attempt being made by Ed and Tenzing, I think we all agreed it was the right choice, but several others could have done it.

"Lowe almost certainly could have made it to the top, with the tremendous performance he put in afterwards, and Noyce in particular. And Evans, had he not had the oxygen set, was fully capable of doing it."

Westmacott had been warned by Hunt from the beginning his chances of reaching the summit were not high. He filled an indispensable role keeping the Khumbu Icefall open. He was also famed - with Lowe and Band - for opening up the Lhotse Face.

Band, the youngster in the team, is now 73 and living in the south of England. He says it was no surprise the expedition was successful - "we were all potential summiteers" - and if Hillary and Tenzing failed, a third assault would have been launched.

"The other climbers deserve credit. Hillary and Tenzing's honours were announced before the team got back to Britain, that's why they got all the razzmatazz."

Lowe and Westmacott both wish more of the credit had gone to Hunt.

"It's a great pity not many people remember his name now, because if there's one person responsible for our success it's John Hunt," says Westmacott.

"He was a great man. The first time we met I was nervous as I'd been a lieutenant during the war and he was a full colonel, but the moment you shook hands, he was a friend. He was very human and a good leader."

Lowe recalls Hunt's reaction to the news of the ascent. "I said: 'I'll bet John Hunt cries', and he did. He's a very emotional man, and he'd put so much into it, and he came bursting forward and grabbed Ed, gave him a huge hug and tears came to his eyes, and that was one of the great things about John Hunt. It wasn't bad for a man to cry."

Westmacott says Everest was climbed "by the lot of us". "After I retired in 1985 I went to Darjeeling to a Himalayan Conference and Ed was one of the stars. I had to give a short talk about something, and Tenzing was there.

"When we were gathered and there were photographers and reporters, Ed arrived and was instantly surrounded by photographers. But Tenzing broke loose, came out into the crowd, got hold of me and said: 'He was there too.'

"Tenzing was that sort of person. Ed's not. He wouldn't have the sensitivity in a way, but he's been so much in the public eye he just stands there and is photographed."

Westmacott does not mean that as a criticism, of Hillary, rather as an illustration of the Zen-like way he has handled the attention.

Lowe and Westmacott say great friendships were forged on the expedition, and they are looking forward to lunch on June 2 at New Zealand House in London. All but Melbourne-based Alf Gregory, now 90, will be there.

What do they discuss when they get together? "We certainly don't talk about Everest," laughs Westmacott.