Capt. John Noel, a photographer and filmmaker who accompanied the first documented attempt to summit the highest peak on earth. Photo / The New York Times
Capt. John Noel, a photographer and filmmaker who accompanied the first documented attempt to summit the highest peak on earth. Photo / The New York Times
As climbers continue to die in the Himalayas, a look back at the conquest of the tallest mountain in the world.
The mountains are deceptively calm. Snow-covered, sometimes they blaze bright enough to blind. They appear indifferent to the tiny travellers on their backs — these European men in thewaning years of the British Empire, seeking, as the stories of the time often read, to conquer Everest.
Conquer? Really? Who conquers whom? If you've ever faced the Himalayas, you know they can swallow you whole.
Some of the earliest pictures of the highest peak on Earth were taken on British expeditions in 1921, 1922 and 1924. They are among the first pictures of our species trying to scale it — and to document the feat for future generations.
Members of the 1922 expedition, shown camped at 6850 metres. Photo / The New York Times
Members of the 1922 expedition used ice picks to hack footholds into a pristine slope, 7000 metres up the Himalayan peak. Photo / The New York Times
The Rongbuk Glacier, taken during the 1921 reconnaissance expedition. After determining that the northern approach was impassable, the expedition moved east. Photo / The New York Times
Look at those tiny creatures — that's us! — walking in a row against the dazzling white wall of ice. See, they are hacking at the mountain to dig steps in which to place their feet. By 1922, a British expedition team got within hundreds of feet of the summit.
What these pictures don't fully tell you is that the mountains are not calm at all. They growl when stones tumble. The wind whistles as you climb. The altitude drains your breath. They tell you how puny you are, how frail really, which is why you try to supplicate them, as the Buddhists who are from those mountains do, by stacking one stone on top of another in prayer.
During the 1921 reconnaissance expedition, the group camped near the town of Shekar Dzong. At the time, Nepal was closed to foreigners. Photo / The New York Times
Four of the five tallest mountains in the world are found in the Himalayas. Makalu, Earth's fifth highest peak, overlooked the 1921 expedition's camp at Pethang Ringmo. Photo / The New York Times
The 1921 expedition was led by Col. Charles Howard-Bury, pictured here seated. Photo / The New York Times
Everest, the peak, is named after a bureaucrat of the British Empire, a choice that itself foregrounds man over nature. The people of the Himalayas often refer to it as a goddess or a mother. In the pictures, they peek out from between the white men's shoulders. In the captions, they are often unnamed, referred to as "sturdy native porters." Their humanity had already apparently been conquered.
The pictures are a glimpse into our collective capacity for adventure and courage. But looking at them now, they are also a glimpse into our capacity for self-destruction, our ability to squander what we love.
The paymaster of the 1924 expedition took the fingerprints of some of the often overlooked people from the region who assisted the team. Photo / The New York Times
Members of the 1921 reconnaissance expedition, which laid the groundwork for the 1922 summit attempt. Photo / The New York Times
What we know now is that by the time of these expeditions — as industrialism was enthusiastically conquering nature — we were already beginning to alter the Himalayas forever. The powerful among us, in Europe and the United States mainly, enlarged our economies as fast as we could by burning as much fossil fuel as we could.
The greenhouse gases we injected into the atmosphere have already warmed the planet measurably. They continue to, at an accelerating rate. As a result, the ice is melting in the Himalayas. At the current pace, scientists forecast that at least a third of the ice in the Himalayas and the neighboring Hindu Kush range will thaw by the end of this century.
The crew made three attempts to reach the summit of Everest in the spring of 1922. After the third try - during which an avalanche killed seven porters - the team gave up. Photo / The New York Times
Why should that matter? These mountains are the water towers of Asia. When the ice is gone, the water is gone too, affecting more than a billion people who live downstream. Then there is nothing left to conquer. No ascent of man.
The mountain is indifferent, as nature almost always is to those of us who think we are somehow something other than just a part of nature.
Pictures are meant to be the repository of our collective memory. The Himalayas hold our memories too. As the ice thaws, it releases the bodies they swallowed long ago.
On a partly cloudy day, from 28,000 feet above sea level, it feels as if you can see forever. Circa spring 1924. Photo / Times Wide World Photos
At the time, the image's original caption said, this was "the highest point in the world at which photographs have ever been taken." Photo / The New York Times
