The Lost Explorer by Conrad Anker, David Roberts Page B
Authors: Conrad Anker, David Roberts
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down in some small way by the other.”
In early August, Mallory and Bullock worked their way up the Kharta Glacier. So poor was local knowledge of this terrain that the team started southward on what would have been a wild goose chase, lured by a local tribesman’s assertion that Chomolungma (“Mother Goddess of the Snows”), the Tibetan name for Everest, lay five days away in that direction. With his keen sense of direction, Mallory grew skeptical, and a cross-examination revealed that in local parlance, there were
two
Chomolungmas: the tribesman had directed the party toward Makalu, the world’s fifth-highest mountain.
On August 7, Mallory fell ill, succumbing to a “weariness beyond muscular fatigue.” For several days, Bullock and the porters pushed ahead, while Mallory tried to recuperate, lying in his sleeping bag, agonizing over the thought of Bullock reaching the North Col without him. His veering spirits plunged: at such moments, he wrote later, “I hated the thought of this expedition.”
To Mallory’s further dismay, it turned out the Kharta Glacier did not head on the slopes of Everest after all: the party would have to find and cross another high pass simply to get tothe East Rongbuk Glacier. Finally in mid-August, buoyed by the unexpected addition of another climber, H. T. Morshead, who had hitherto been off on a lowland surveying mission, a rejuvenated Mallory and the steady Bullock crested the Lhakpa La, at 22,500 feet. At last they could see, only three miles away, across easy glacier, the slopes leading up to the North Col from the east. They looked climbable.
By now the monsoon hung so heavy on the Himalaya that it was snowing from eight to ten hours a day. On this interminable expedition, it would turn out to be a major accomplishment simply to reach the North Col, and thus pave the way for a true attempt in some future year. Yet now Mallory’s spirits soared wildly, as he anticipated making an assault on the summit in September.
It can be argued that on all three Everest expeditions, Mallory underestimated the mountain. It was a common foible: during the early years, one crack European mountaineer after another misjudged the Himalaya in general. In 1895, Alfred Mummery, the finest British climber of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a genius in the Alps, had tried to climb 26,660-foot Nanga Parbat with only two teammates and a pair of Gurkha porters. From the mountain, he jauntily wrote his wife, “I don’t think there will be any serious mountaineering difficulties on Nanga. I fancy the ascent will be mainly a question of endurance.” Treating the massive peak as though it were merely a slightly outsized version of Mont Blanc, Mummery vanished with the two Gurkhas on a reconnaissance of the west face. Their bodies were never found. Nanga Parbat would not be climbed until 1953.
Almost never during subsequent decades would a Himalayan mountain fall to the same expedition that first reconnoitered it (the glorious exception being the French on Annapurna in 1950). In his more judicious moments, Mallory recognized how weak the 1921 party was, how formidable Everest’s defenses; but then he would stare again at his dotted line from the North Col to the summit and imagine himself sailing past each easy obstacle …
In topping the Lhakpa La, the trio of climbers had found the key to the mountain. But now, snow conditions were so atrocious that the party dared not attempt those three milesseparating their farthest push from the North Col. For a full month, they played a demoralizing waiting game.
At last, on September 16, the weather changed, as the monsoon began to peter out. In the meantime, the full team had finally assembled on the Kharta Glacier. Mallory organized a carry that got eleven loads of supplies to the top of Lhakpa La. Four days later, he set out with Bullock and Edward Wheeler, the expedition’s chief surveyor, to cross the East Rongbuk and climb to the North Col.
In early August, Mallory and Bullock worked their way up the Kharta Glacier. So poor was local knowledge of this terrain that the team started southward on what would have been a wild goose chase, lured by a local tribesman’s assertion that Chomolungma (“Mother Goddess of the Snows”), the Tibetan name for Everest, lay five days away in that direction. With his keen sense of direction, Mallory grew skeptical, and a cross-examination revealed that in local parlance, there were
two
Chomolungmas: the tribesman had directed the party toward Makalu, the world’s fifth-highest mountain.
On August 7, Mallory fell ill, succumbing to a “weariness beyond muscular fatigue.” For several days, Bullock and the porters pushed ahead, while Mallory tried to recuperate, lying in his sleeping bag, agonizing over the thought of Bullock reaching the North Col without him. His veering spirits plunged: at such moments, he wrote later, “I hated the thought of this expedition.”
To Mallory’s further dismay, it turned out the Kharta Glacier did not head on the slopes of Everest after all: the party would have to find and cross another high pass simply to get tothe East Rongbuk Glacier. Finally in mid-August, buoyed by the unexpected addition of another climber, H. T. Morshead, who had hitherto been off on a lowland surveying mission, a rejuvenated Mallory and the steady Bullock crested the Lhakpa La, at 22,500 feet. At last they could see, only three miles away, across easy glacier, the slopes leading up to the North Col from the east. They looked climbable.
By now the monsoon hung so heavy on the Himalaya that it was snowing from eight to ten hours a day. On this interminable expedition, it would turn out to be a major accomplishment simply to reach the North Col, and thus pave the way for a true attempt in some future year. Yet now Mallory’s spirits soared wildly, as he anticipated making an assault on the summit in September.
It can be argued that on all three Everest expeditions, Mallory underestimated the mountain. It was a common foible: during the early years, one crack European mountaineer after another misjudged the Himalaya in general. In 1895, Alfred Mummery, the finest British climber of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a genius in the Alps, had tried to climb 26,660-foot Nanga Parbat with only two teammates and a pair of Gurkha porters. From the mountain, he jauntily wrote his wife, “I don’t think there will be any serious mountaineering difficulties on Nanga. I fancy the ascent will be mainly a question of endurance.” Treating the massive peak as though it were merely a slightly outsized version of Mont Blanc, Mummery vanished with the two Gurkhas on a reconnaissance of the west face. Their bodies were never found. Nanga Parbat would not be climbed until 1953.
Almost never during subsequent decades would a Himalayan mountain fall to the same expedition that first reconnoitered it (the glorious exception being the French on Annapurna in 1950). In his more judicious moments, Mallory recognized how weak the 1921 party was, how formidable Everest’s defenses; but then he would stare again at his dotted line from the North Col to the summit and imagine himself sailing past each easy obstacle …
In topping the Lhakpa La, the trio of climbers had found the key to the mountain. But now, snow conditions were so atrocious that the party dared not attempt those three milesseparating their farthest push from the North Col. For a full month, they played a demoralizing waiting game.
At last, on September 16, the weather changed, as the monsoon began to peter out. In the meantime, the full team had finally assembled on the Kharta Glacier. Mallory organized a carry that got eleven loads of supplies to the top of Lhakpa La. Four days later, he set out with Bullock and Edward Wheeler, the expedition’s chief surveyor, to cross the East Rongbuk and climb to the North Col.
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