Coburn - The vast unknown: Americas first ascent of Everest

Triumph on Everest: A Photobiography of Sir Edmund Hillary

Touching My Fathers Soul: A Sherpas Journey to the Top of Everest (with Jamling Tenzing Norgay)

Everest: Mountain Without Mercy

Aama in America: A Pilgrimage of the Heart

Nepali Aama: Life Lessons of a Himalayan Woman

Himalaya: Personal Stories of Grandeur, Challenge, and Hope (with Richard C. Blum and Erica Stone)

Ahead of Their Time: Wyoming Voices of Wilderness (with Leila Bruno)

Copyright 2013 by Broughton Coburn

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Coburn, Broughton
The vast unknown: Americas first ascent of Everest/Broughton Coburn.First edition.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. American Mount Everest Expedition (1963) 2. Mountaineering expeditionsEverest, Mount (China and Nepal) 3. MountaineersUnited StatesBiography. 4. Everest, Mount (China and Nepal)Description and travel. I. Title.
GV199.44.E85C64 2013
796.522095496dc23 2012040986

eISBN: 978-0-307-88716-0

Map by David Lindroth, Inc.
Jacket design by Eric White
Jacket photography: Barry Bishop/National Geographic Stock

v3.1

For Didi

Al Auten. Radio operator. A self-effacing Morse code expert from Denver. Played a critical role by carrying a load to the high camp on the West Ridge.

Barry Bishop. Polar researcher and adventurer from the Midwest. Directed National Geographics Committee for Research and Exploration. Teamed up with Lute Jerstad on the South Col. In 1963, Bishops wife, Lila, was a twenty-eight-year-old from Cincinnati.

Jake Breitenbach. A Dartmouth math whiz and buddy of Barry Corbet, he dropped out to climb and guide in the Tetons. A peak in the Lost River Range of Idaho is named after him.

Barry Corbet. A brilliant, supremely able-bodied Dartmouth student, he moved to the Tetons and later became a beloved advocate for the disabled. Married Muffy French, a tantalizing redhead and East Coast debutante.

Dave Dingman. Expedition doctor, with Gil Roberts. A Dartmouth climber who guided in the Tetons. Climbed high on Everest and aided struggling climbers above and below the South Col.

Dan Doody. Expedition cinematographer and assistant to Norman Dyhrenfurth. A gaunt and awkward farm boy from Connecticut, he contracted thrombophlebitis.

Norman Dyhrenfurth. Leader. A Swiss American, he conceived and organized the expedition and filmed it, fulfilling a multigenerational destiny with Everest.

Dick Emerson. Sociologist and a climbing ranger in Grand Teton National Park. From Salt Lake City. He oversaw expedition logistics and did sociology research.

Nawang Gombu. Diminutive friend and sidekick to Jim Whittaker and nephew of Tenzing Norgay from Darjeeling, India. He escaped from a Tibetan monastery to climb in northern India and Nepal.

Tom Hornbein. In charge of oxygen, and a West Ridge fanatic. A prominent anesthesiologist and researcher, he designed an oxygen mask as a navy doc.

Lute Jerstad. Lighthearted South Col climber and buddy of Barry Bishop. Actor, teacher, and veteran guide on Washingtons Mount Rainier.

Jim Lester. The expedition psychologist. A nonmountaineer and accomplished musician, he conducted research on stress in isolated circumstances.

Maynard Miller. The teams glaciologist. An authority on Alaskas glaciers, he drilled ice cores and measured mass and movement of the Khumbu Glacier.

Dick Pownall. High school teacher and principal in Denver and a veteran Tetons guide. He was skilled and cautious. Climbed above the South Col with the second summit party.

Barry Prather. Suffered pulmonary edema on the South Col. A farm boy and Dartmouth climber, he was known for his size and strength.

Gil Roberts. The large-hearted and levelheaded medical director. A Stanford and air force surgeon, he had previously climbed in the Himalaya. No relation to Jimmy Roberts.

Colonel Jimmy Roberts. Transport officer. Retired from a career with the British army in India, he managed nine hundred porters and thirty-nine Sherpas with an English sense of order. Later developed trekking in the Himalaya.

Will Siri. Deputy leader and physiology researcher. He led an expedition to Mount Makalu, the worlds fifth highest peak, in 1954.

James Ramsey Ullman. Expedition scribe and historian. Wrote several acclaimed books relating to mountains. Turned back the first day of the approach march.

Willi Unsoeld. Climbing leader. Legendary raconteur, ethicist, philosopher, professor, metaphysician, and West Ridge climber. Married to Jolene.

Jim Whittaker. South Col climbing powerhouse, CEO of REI, and a legend in Pacific Northwest mountaineering circles, along with his twin brother Lou.

Bob Bates. Willi Unsoelds counterpart in the Peace Corps in Nepal and a member of the 1938 American expedition to K2.

Nick Clinch. Amiable Palo Alto attorney, mountain historian, and leader of two American Himalayan expeditions, to Hidden Peak (1958) and Masherbrum (1960).

Jack Durrance. Dartmouth and Tetons climbing legend in the 1930s. Later a Denver physician.

Gnter Oskar and Hettie Dyhrenfurth. Parents of Norman. Widely known in Europe as Himalayan explorers, they were awarded gold medals in the 1936 Olympics.

Glenn Exum. A legend in Tetons climbing and guiding, beginning in the 1930s. Partnered with Paul Petzoldt in the first guiding service in the Tetons.

Elizabeth Liz Hawley. Reuters correspondent based in Kathmandu and preeminent historian for Himalayan expeditions.

Sir Edmund Hillary. The first person to climb Mount Everest, with Tenzing Norgay, on May 29, 1953. He dedicated the rest of his life to providing assistance to the Sherpas.