قله‌ی جنوبی - ۱۹۵۳

Chapter nine

The South Summit - 1953

On 22 May, the first two summit climbers, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, set out from Camp 4 to the South Col. John Hunt and two Sherpas went with them, carrying heavy loads. Using oxygen, the three British men reached the Col first. But they were very tired, and when they took off their oxygen equipment they could not think clearly.

It took them over an hour to put up a tent in the terrible wind. When the Sherpas arrived, they collapsed in the tent and could not move.

They rested for a day, then John Hunt and the Sherpa Da Namgyal set out to climb higher. They both had oxygen and were carrying about 20 kilograms. They moved very slowly, and Bourdillon and Evans soon came past them. Hunt and Da Namgyal both had problems with their oxygen. Sometimes ice stopped it working, and it was very difficult to breathe.

On they went, more and more slowly. At 8,338 metres Hunt and Da Namgyal could go no further. They put down their loads and turned back. When they reached the South Col, they could hardly walk.

Above them, Bourdillon and Evans went on. At 1 o’clock they reached the South Summit, 8,750 metres.

In front of them they could see the final summit ridge. It was a view no man had ever seen before. To the left, a steep rocky slope fell 2,400 metres down to Camp 4 on the glacier. To the right, there was a line of white snow cornices over a drop of 2,500 metres.

Should they go on? This was their one chance to get to the top. But was it safe, or would they die, like Mallory and Irvine before them? They stood, and looked, and thought.

Evans had already had trouble with his oxygen. Bourdillon had fixed it, but they did not have a lot of oxygen left. They thought it would take three hours to reach the summit, and two hours to get back to the South Summit. By then it would be 6 o’clock, and they would have to climb down another 900 metres, without oxygen, to Camp 8. It was too far.

So, sadly, they turned back. But it was the right thing to do. The wind grew stronger, and clouds came up. It was difficult to find the way. They were very tired, and several times they slipped on the way down. At one point Evans slipped and fell. He slid past Bourdillon like a bullet, and pulled him off his feet.

A moment later they were both sliding down the snow towards the glacier, thousands of feet below. Quickly, Bourdillon turned onto his face and dug his ice axe into the snow. The ice axe stopped them, but they had nearly died.

Was this what happened to Mallory and Irvine, twenty-nine years earlier? they wondered. A sudden fall, on the way down, and no one to help? It could happen so easily.

When they reached Camp 8 they were exhausted. Their faces were covered with ice, and they could hardly walk. ‘They looked like strangers from another planet,’ John Hunt said.

But they had climbed higher than any man before them.