Everest - The First Ascent: How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain by Harriet Tuckey
Authors: Harriet Tuckey
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At another he was feeling thrilled at his first view of the high Himalayas. 19 Constantly fascinated by the local people, he described their living conditions and farming methods in great detail in his diary.
At the village of Chisapani he thought the local cooking techniques were “far more efficient than our own,” and drew a diagram of the contraption the people were using for heating up water, the first of a series of annotated sketches of local tools and devices that impressed him. A few days later it was children who captured his attention: “I began to play at ball with them, and was surprised to find they had no idea how to catch a ball. After about an hour, however, they were getting the idea quite well, particularly a small boy of about eight who put out his tongue at each attempt.” 20
Pugh did not identify with the members of Shipton’s team. He treated them not so much as comrades, but as objects of observation, like everything else. He did not even tell them he was a climber, although he had as much experience as most of them, if not more. He knew his knowledge of climbing was vital to his work, yet he allowed the team to think that he was a complete novice.
Shipton’s failure to stress that there was important research to be done meant that the climbers did not make themselves available to Pugh as often as he wanted. Recognizing the need to avoid antagonizing them, Pugh turned his enquiring mind to the Sherpas and the porters.
The Sherpa people, who originally migrated from Tibet and settled in the high Solu-Khumbu district of Nepal, did the high-altitude load-carrying for climbing expeditions. They also did the cooking, looked after the climbers, and helped to recruit and manage the porters. The gangs of porters were Nepalese. They were recruited from villages along the way, usually only worked for certain stages of the trek, and did not go above base camps. The porters carried 80- or 90-pound loads, as well as their own sleeping mats, blankets, and food, weighing another 20 pounds. Several carried loads as heavy as themselves; five strong men hefted 120 pounds each. Pugh noticed that some of the older porters “did not seem very fit.” There had been some hard bargaining, and he thought they might have undertaken the job “from economic pressure.” “There are three children carrying loads,” he also noted. “Must get ages and weights.” 21
The porters supported their loads on headbands across their foreheads, which, Pugh realized, channeled the weight down through the spine toward the pelvis so it did not fall mainly on the shoulders. When he measured how fast the porters climbed, he found that, while the “most able” men “climbed extremely fast,” their average climbing rate was a moderate 1,600 feet per hour, because they rested every few minutes, propping their wicker baskets on sticks to ease the weight on the headbands. In one place the cavalcade had to ford a twisting river more than twenty times. Pugh had difficulty staying upright in the water and found it “amazing how surefooted” the porters were, even with their heavy loads. 22
In their camps at night, he watched the Sherpa Sirdar, who “sits under his umbrella and directs operations.” The sirdar and his assistant had airbeds to sleep on, whereas the ordinary porters, “in groups of 2–6,” slept on “clothes spread out on the ground” around “a dozen small campfires . . . Some have cotton cloaks, others sleep almost naked.” Pugh worried that their skimpy clothing and the increasing cold of the nights were adding to their fatigue.
When, one day, the porters resisted pressure to extend a long march to reach the next watering place, Pugh noted that they had already climbed 2,000 feet, which, “for men with loads of 80–120lbs working at an altitude of 9,400ft (2,865m), is almost a full day.” 23 The porters agreed to continue, but arrived at the evening campsite long after the unencumbered climbers. Pugh
At the village of Chisapani he thought the local cooking techniques were “far more efficient than our own,” and drew a diagram of the contraption the people were using for heating up water, the first of a series of annotated sketches of local tools and devices that impressed him. A few days later it was children who captured his attention: “I began to play at ball with them, and was surprised to find they had no idea how to catch a ball. After about an hour, however, they were getting the idea quite well, particularly a small boy of about eight who put out his tongue at each attempt.” 20
Pugh did not identify with the members of Shipton’s team. He treated them not so much as comrades, but as objects of observation, like everything else. He did not even tell them he was a climber, although he had as much experience as most of them, if not more. He knew his knowledge of climbing was vital to his work, yet he allowed the team to think that he was a complete novice.
Shipton’s failure to stress that there was important research to be done meant that the climbers did not make themselves available to Pugh as often as he wanted. Recognizing the need to avoid antagonizing them, Pugh turned his enquiring mind to the Sherpas and the porters.
The Sherpa people, who originally migrated from Tibet and settled in the high Solu-Khumbu district of Nepal, did the high-altitude load-carrying for climbing expeditions. They also did the cooking, looked after the climbers, and helped to recruit and manage the porters. The gangs of porters were Nepalese. They were recruited from villages along the way, usually only worked for certain stages of the trek, and did not go above base camps. The porters carried 80- or 90-pound loads, as well as their own sleeping mats, blankets, and food, weighing another 20 pounds. Several carried loads as heavy as themselves; five strong men hefted 120 pounds each. Pugh noticed that some of the older porters “did not seem very fit.” There had been some hard bargaining, and he thought they might have undertaken the job “from economic pressure.” “There are three children carrying loads,” he also noted. “Must get ages and weights.” 21
The porters supported their loads on headbands across their foreheads, which, Pugh realized, channeled the weight down through the spine toward the pelvis so it did not fall mainly on the shoulders. When he measured how fast the porters climbed, he found that, while the “most able” men “climbed extremely fast,” their average climbing rate was a moderate 1,600 feet per hour, because they rested every few minutes, propping their wicker baskets on sticks to ease the weight on the headbands. In one place the cavalcade had to ford a twisting river more than twenty times. Pugh had difficulty staying upright in the water and found it “amazing how surefooted” the porters were, even with their heavy loads. 22
In their camps at night, he watched the Sherpa Sirdar, who “sits under his umbrella and directs operations.” The sirdar and his assistant had airbeds to sleep on, whereas the ordinary porters, “in groups of 2–6,” slept on “clothes spread out on the ground” around “a dozen small campfires . . . Some have cotton cloaks, others sleep almost naked.” Pugh worried that their skimpy clothing and the increasing cold of the nights were adding to their fatigue.
When, one day, the porters resisted pressure to extend a long march to reach the next watering place, Pugh noted that they had already climbed 2,000 feet, which, “for men with loads of 80–120lbs working at an altitude of 9,400ft (2,865m), is almost a full day.” 23 The porters agreed to continue, but arrived at the evening campsite long after the unencumbered climbers. Pugh
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