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Introduction
Ed Hillary remarked to me when we were walking up the Barun Valley in the Himalayas in 1954 that being on this expedition will change your life. Ed knew what he was talking about: no mountaineer had experienced change more than he had during the previous nine months since he climbed Everest. Circumstances threw us together for most of the expedition, and I got to know that he wasnt a man to squander words. Events that took place on our expedition took a high toll on Hillary. Yet, as we played out our drama among crevasses and high mountains a story of accident, rescue, collapse, tension, unselfish dedication, and real accomplishment even Hillary could not have predicted the full import of his words.
The title of the book When Men and Mountains Meet by W.H. Tilman comes from William Blakes two lines Great things are done when men and mountains meet: this is not done by jostling in the street. Tilman was one of my heroes, and it was a milestone in my life when, a year after I added his book Nepal Himalaya to my shelf, I found myself heading into those untrodden ranges that he had just begun to glimpse, and which he was holding up before us as an alluring new mountain playground.
Mount Everest, the long unattainable summit, was the subject of many of the other books on my shelf. It had been climbed by Hillary and Tenzing Norgay only a few weeks before it was publicly announced that Hillary was to lead us, a group of mainly New Zealand climbers, into unclimbed territory back near Everest the following year.
This was a major event in New Zealand climbing, the first expedition organised and sponsored by the New Zealand Alpine Club and, following two small but most effective privately organised expeditions, a bold undertaking involving the largest body of New Zealand climbers to set foot on the Himalayas up to that time.
The Southern Alps continues to put up the worthiest of challenges, both old and new, to climbers of all types. These are the mountains that made me, and Im grateful to my friends in New Zealand, in those years, who trusted me as a climbing companion. Ultimately it was the mountains themselves, the unforgiving mountains, that were the measure of our fitness to be among them. And test us they did, to the limit, not only in the Himalayas.
When I took my first thrilling but cautious steps into the Southern Alps many of the early climbers were still alive. Few of them then had written about their exploits but I knew about them, and I had the memorable experience of coming face to face with a number of these pioneers at a jubilee celebration in 1951. I like to think that some of my own adventures too, in the years that have followed, can be described as pioneering.
In this memoir I try to answer questions about the place of mountaineering in my life, and about the ugly face that some climbing today presents to the world.
The mountains invite us all to come under their spell, to be changed, even if only from the valley floor. Ill be happy if my story encourages readers to go out and explore that invitation.
1. Revelation and Survival
Hillarys comment was so prophetic that I find the events of 1954 push all other memories out of the way and insist on being told first. I begin among the high reaches of the Barun Glacier and peaks, an area between Everest and the fifth-highest peak, Mount Makalu.
Ed Hillary, Jim McFarlane and I set off from base camp on 24 April, to explore, climb, acclimatise, and to gather information about future climbing opportunities. Some of our Sherpas having gone back to the pass into the Barun to bring up more supplies, we had five to accompany us, all of us carrying reasonably heavy loads. My moderate 18-kilogram pack at 17,000 ft (5200 m) had me gulping for air for the first time.
A few hours picking our way among the sharp-split granite moraine might have been tedious in other circumstances, but when we came around a corner, what we saw pure white, directly ahead of us was Mount Everest. Though only 19 kilometres away, it looked remote, not only because the two peaks of Lhotse dominated the foreground, but for me, because the real Everest was slow to yield to the mystical Everest I had carried with me ever since I first read the climbing books in the Dunedin Athenaeum library as a boy.
Lhotse (centre) and Everest (behind) from the upper Barun. Photo: Brian Wilkins
Sentimental language was usually avoided among a group of climbers at work, but if it had been appropriate, I would have asked Hillary what his feelings were almost a year since 29 May 1953, when for the first time since that day he was back looking upon the scene of his climb.
We camped on the moraine. More delights came our way when our first mail runner caught up with us. My family and friends did me proud. Hillary opened a letter from his wife, telling him she was pregnant. Another mountaineer? No idle quip.
As we carried on up the Barun I wondered, would I be one of those who never acclimatise properly? Hillary, Lowe and Evans had been through it all before; proven acclimatisers. Many others who come to these mountains never acclimatise, or acclimatise so slowly during weeks or months as to be unable to do much climbing at all. One can do nothing about it except wait for the throw of the biochemical dice. How were the others doing? Id been going better than McFarlane on the first day, but on the next, when we went to 17,800 ft (5400 m), alongside the glacier, the roles reversed and I was sitting down for a spell at every third boulder, it seemed. My diary says:
Comparing oneself with Hillary is no help at all. In spite of the fact that he is far from well, he has been in the lead all the time without any apparent distress. Now he is sitting by himself high up on a terrace above the glacier. With the memories that are there for him on the skyline, and the news from home, I dont think he is taking much notice of our stumblings as he sits in a clear line of sight to the beacon which had set for him his lifes course.
Farther up the Barun next day, we camped above the glacier. In two days we had moved around Makalu from the south to the west. By climbing the peak immediately above us we could look into the huge glaciated area, almost five kilometres wide, making up the western slopes of Makalu.