Since the problem of climbing Mount Everest presented itself physiologically, it was only natural in us on the Expedition continually to be watching acclimatisation. We watched it in connection with the whole idea of being trained for the event. Probably each of us had a different notion as to how he should be trained, and some thought more about training than others. On this point I must confess a weakness when I foresee an event in which my physical strength and condition are to count for so much; I am one of those who think more about training. I consider how I may add a cubit to my stature and all the time I am half aware that I might spare myself the trouble of such futile meditations. Experience seems only to show that, provided I habitually eat well and sleep well and take a moderate amount of exercise, I can do nothing to improve my endurance on a mountain. Probably some men may do more to this end. The week we spent in Darjeeling sufficed for all of us to brace ourselves after the enervating effects of our journey from England. Norton, who had come out rather earlier and prepared himself in the most strenuous fashion for the immense exertions of the Khadir Cup, was already finely trained—too well, I thought, for so lean a man. He and Geoffrey Bruce, my companion in the first party, together with General Bruce, Longstaff, and Noel, elected to walk a great deal in Sikkim, and so I believe did Somervell, Wakefield, and Morshead in the second party. The General, very frankly expressing the probable advantage to his figure of profuse perspiration in those warm valleys, also walked a great deal. For an exactly contrary reason—I hate the inconvenience that must arise on the march from wet clothes—I walked less than any of these; probably Longstaff and I rode more than the rest up to Phari Dzong. But when I heard how wonderfully fit were the two most energetic walkers of our party, and learned from Geoffrey Bruce of Norton’s amazing pace uphill, I could not refrain from testing my own condition on the first occasion that we approached a comparatively high altitude: coming up to Gnatong, where the bungalow is situated above 12,000 feet, I walked for all I was worth, and was well satisfied. Next day I felt far from well with indigestion and headache. General Bruce and Longstaff were also unwell, and it was a cheerless afternoon and evening in the two little rooms at Kupup, with hailstorms outside and too little light within. Norton and Bruce elected to sleep on the verandah, and these two, with me, if I were fit enough, intended starting early next morning so as to climb a small mountain, diverging thus from our path over the Jelep La (14,500 feet) for the sake of the view. We set off not much later than we had intended; but it was now Norton’s turn to be unwell, and he was properly mountain-sick 1,000 feet below the pass. However, we were not inclined to pay much attention to these little troubles; with a day’s rest at a lower elevation (9,000 feet), and the pleasures of feasting with the Macdonalds in Yatung, we were quickly restored.
The continuous process of acclimatisation was due to begin at Phari Dzong. There we should stay three days above 14,000 feet, and after that our marches would keep us between that level and 17,000 feet, so that a man would surely find out how he was affected by living at high altitudes. At Phari the whole party seemed remarkably fit, and any amount of energy was available for sorting out and checking our vast mass of stores. But the conditions of travel on these high plains became evident so soon as we were on the march again. Those who gaily started to walk, not troubling to provide themselves with a pony, found after a time that they were glad enough to ride; but then it became so bitterly cold that riding was more disagreeable than walking, and most of us, as we pushed along in the teeth of a blizzard, preferred to walk, and were surprisingly fatigued. Two of the party were ill when we reached camp, but more perhaps from chill than mountain-sickness. On the following day a system of sharing ponies to allow alternate walking and riding was more carefully organised. Even so, most of us must have walked two-thirds of that long rough march (about 25 miles), and while crossing the “Concertina pass,” as we called it, a name which explains itself, we had ample opportunities of testing our powers of walking uphill between 16,000 and 17,000 feet; it was evident that we were already becoming acclimatised and able to enjoy those mild competitions in which a man will test his powers against another as they breast a hill together. This was encouraging enough; but how far we were from “going” as we would go at 10,000 feet lower could easily be observed from our puffing and blowing and the very moderate pace achieved by great efforts.
It was a week later before we had another opportunity of testing our acclimatisation as we came up to the Tinki La, a rise of nearly 3,000 feet up to 17,000 feet. I suppose there may have been some slight improvement in this week; for my part, I was fairly fit, and after riding over the comparatively flat approach, walked up about 2,000 feet without a halt and experienced no sort of fatigue. But the party as a whole was disappointing, and several members were distinctly affected by the height. Perhaps this pass was one of those places where some local circumstance emphasises the altitude, for the ponies stopped and puffed in a way we had never seen before; but I fancy the reason of their condition was to be found in the steepness of the ascent.
The day after crossing the Tinki La, we had a short march to Gyangkar Nangpa, and, coming across the flat basin, had full in view before us Sangkar Ri, a prominent rock peak, the most northerly of a remarkable range above the left bank of the Arun River. The desire to vary the routine of the daily march by climbing a mountain had already stirred a number of suggestions among us, and now the opportunity seemed to offer itself; we were further incited by the prospect of a splendid view of Mount Everest if we could reach this summit, which lay not so very far out of our way. No doubt unconscious motives, too, promoted our attempt on Sangkar Ri. The pleasures of mountaineering must always be restricted for those who grapple with the highest mountains, if not denied in toto; but the ascent of a little rock peak of 20,000 feet might help to keep alive in us some appreciation of mountaineering as an enjoyable pursuit. And then we wanted confidence in ourselves. At present we could only feel how unequal we were to the prodigious task in front of us; so were we urged to try conclusions with Sangkar Ri, to put ourselves to the test.
The project demanded a high camp, at 17,000 feet, nearly 4,000 feet above Gyangkar Nangpa. Seeing that it would clearly be undesirable to employ more than a very small number of porters to carry up tents and sleeping-bags for the night, Somervell and I at first made a plan for ourselves alone; but when it was found that two others wanted to come with us, this plan was amplified to include them, and it was arranged that the four of us should sleep at close quarters in a Whymper tent. The porters who carried for us in the evening would take down their burdens in the early morning, in time to get them loaded on to the animals at Gyangkar without delaying the main body. The establishment of our camp did not proceed without some little difficulty; one of the porters gave out and had to be relieved of his load, and it was not until we had contoured a hillside for an hour in the dark that we found a suitable place. So soon as we had lain down in our tent, a bitter wind sprang up and blew in at the door; the night was one of the coldest I remember.
We had ascended not more than 1,000 feet next morning when one of the party decided that he was too ill to go on; he exhibited the usual symptoms of mountain-sickness. While the other two suffered the disappointment of turning back, Somervell and I pushed on towards a snow col on the North ridge of the mountain. As it was desirable to reach this point without delay in order to see the view while it was yet unclouded, and to take photographs, I continued at my own pace, and eventually found myself looking down on Somervell some distance below me as he struggled up with frequent halts. I very soon made up my mind that we should get no higher than this. But after a brief halt and some refreshment when he had rejoined me, Somervell announced that he was prepared to go on. We began to make our way along a rock ridge, which became ever steeper as we mounted. Our progress was slow indeed, and I kept thinking, as I found myself more and more fatigued, “Surely we must give up now; a man in his state can’t go on climbing such rocks as these.” But whenever I asked how he was feeling, he would answer that he was getting along well enough; and as we gradually won our way up, and I kept my eye on my watch, I began to see that we had really a chance of reaching the summit. The rocks were by no means easy, and it is commonly said that the effort of climbing difficult rocks is just what will prove most exhausting, if it can be undertaken at all, to men affected by altitude. The struggle to overcome a steep obstacle must always interfere with regular breathing. Nevertheless, I am inclined to think that the advantage in sheer exhilaration of climbing difficult rocks compensates the greater trouble in breathing, and that so long as I am still in a state to climb them, I prefer even difficult rocks to snow. The actual exertion put forth in mounting even the steepest cliff is often overrated. If there are moments of intense struggle, these are rare, and though the demand on nervous concentration is great, the climber proceeds for the most part with balanced movements, requiring, indeed, the sureness of trained muscles, but no tremendous output of strength. With such balanced movement the two of us were able to go slowly upwards, without a rapidly increasing exhaustion, to the foot of a formidable gendarme. We had hopes in the first instance that he might be compelled to yield to a frontal attack. But, 30 feet up, we found our way barred by a slab, which was at once so smooth and so exposed that, though we felt it might conceivably be climbed, we decided it was not for us to climb it at the present moment; our allowance of rope was insufficient for operations which might require an “abseil”[[5]] on the descent. We therefore turned to the West side of our ridge. Here, of course, we were out of the sun, and the rocks were so cold that they felt sticky to the skin and blistered our finger-tips. However, we managed to execute a sensational traverse, and afterwards climbed a steep wall, which brought us out above the slab from which we had turned back. It was here that we experienced both the difficulty and the danger of rock-climbing at high altitudes. It was necessary, in a terribly exposed position, to pull oneself over an edge of rock on to a little platform. A big effort was required: but the reserve of strength had been exhausted. Having committed myself to this taxing struggling, the grim thought arose in my mind that at the critical moment I might be found wanting and my body refuse to respond when the greatest effort was required of it. A great effort was required before I arrived panting on the airy stance.
[5]. A method of coming down on a double rope.
After these exciting moments, we reached the top of the gendarme without much trouble. But he had cost us too much time. We had to start from Gyangkar this same day in pursuit of General Bruce, and ought to cross the quicksands of the Shiling Plain before dark. We had already overstepped the time allowed for the ascent according to our intention. The summit now appeared perhaps 500 feet above us, and the intervening rocks were evidently going to provide some stiff passages. It was necessary, therefore, to turn back here and waste no time on the descent. The descent proved longer than we had expected; we chose a long traverse over steep snow to avoid the gendarme, and neither of us was in a condition to cut steps quickly. We observed, in fact, what I had observed last year with Bullock, that one may go down a considerable distance at a high altitude, and instead of recovering very quickly, as may happen in the Alps, one only becomes progressively more fatigued. It was 4.30 p.m. when we reached Gyankar and found ourselves happily recovered from our exertions. Sangkar Ri was still unclimbed. But we looked back on our expedition with some satisfaction. We had been little short of 20,000 feet when we turned back, and I had been greatly impressed by Somervell’s endurance. For though very much fatigued before reaching the col at the foot of our ridge, and further enervated by an attack of dysentery which had begun on the previous day, his condition seemed rather to improve than to deteriorate above that point. For my part, I had come near enough to exhaustion, considering the difficulties of the climb, and had suffered from a severe headache, but certainly felt no worse than I expected at this stage of our training.
I entered upon this tale with the object of illustrating the course of acclimatisation among us; but the return to Gyangkar was not for us the end of the story. It was now clear that we could not hope to cross the quicksands before night. However, we might hope to reach the ford by which we must cross the river Yaru with still enough light to recognise the spot, and thereafter we could rest in a sheltered place I knew of until the late rising moon should show us the tracks of the main body. We set off accordingly in high haste on the ponies we found waiting for us. Our instruction had been that these animals should be specially selected for their fleetness of foot—for Tibetan ponies can, some of them, travel at a fair speed, while others no amount of flogging will urge beyond 3 miles an hour. The beast I rode very quickly showed that he was one of these last. I had entrusted my ice-axe to a porter who accompanied us, and now told him to ride behind me and use it if necessary. For 5 miles he used it with a dexterity and energy beyond praise. Then I abandoned the pony, and, walking ahead of the party, easily outstripped the rest encumbered with this beast. Night fell when we were still 2 miles short of the ford. But as Somervell and I approached the spot and wondered exactly where it might be, we perceived lights a little way ahead on the further bank of the river, presumably those of a Tibetan camp, and soon a figure appeared on that side. We were hailed in Tibetan; our sirdar, coming up, spoke Tibetan in reply; the figure waded across to us; and it was explained to me that this good Samaritan was prepared to carry me over on his back. I readily agreed to so generous a proposition. He was not an easy steed, but I was able to hang on to him for a hundred yards or so until he deposited me on the other bank, a light enough burden, apparently, to be picked up and set down like a child. And 400 yards further we reached the lights. It was no stranger camp; the tents were ours, and the General and the rest were sitting in the Mess while dinner was keeping hot in the kitchen against our return.
Ten days later we reached our Base Camp at the foot of the Rongbuk Glacier (16,800 feet) and contemplated the prospect of rising another 12,000 feet and more to the summit of Mount Everest. At all events the whole party had reached this point remarkably fit, and no one now showed signs of distress from staying at this elevation. Remembering how Bullock and I had felt after our first exertions up here last year, I hoped to spend a few days at the Base Camp before doing very much, and as General Bruce’s plans worked out nothing was required of me at present. But much was asked of the reconnaissance party which started out on May 4.