Base Camp CONFIDENTIAL (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine April 2001

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True EVEREST
Base Camp CONFIDENTIAL (Cont.)

Modern Base Camp is a far cry from the solemn, holy ground where Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and New Zealander Edmund Hillary launched their historic bid for the summit in the name of the British Crown in 1953. At that time, very few Westerners had laid eyes on the mountain's southern, or Nepalese, side. The British had made several attempts to climb Everest via the Tibetan side as far back as the early 1920s, but the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 closed off the north to foreign expeditions until the late seventies. When Hillary and Tenzing showed up, only three years after the Kingdom of Nepal opened the southern routes to mountaineers, they came with an army of over 350 porters, 20 climbing Sherpas, and 14 Westerners.

SIR EDMUND HILLARY: We were the only expedition on the mountain in 1953. Of course, the base camp we used is not the Base Camp where everybody goes now. We were rather closer to the bottom of the Icefall. There were lots of ice pinnacles and plenty of loose rocks lying around. It was not a comfortable place by any means for camping, but we had a magnificent view at the bottom of the Icefall and up toward the summit. I didn't regard it as a particularly special place. It was like all base camps: It had piles of equipment and food and climbing gear. I don't remember doing a great deal of relaxing there.

In those days, the expedition members worked hard. We helped carry loads up with the Sherpas. Nowadays, the Sherpas do most of the work and the expedition members sit around a great deal. We did not sit around. We were constantly sorting loads, carrying loads. We very quickly discovered which of the containers held the better food...so toward the end we had all the food that wasn't all that popular. We had some potatoes there, and tinned meat. But it wasn't very exciting, our food, I can assure you.

In the decade following Hillary's climb, seven other people from two teams, Swiss and Chinese, managed to reach the top. It wasn't until 1963 that an American team—Jim Whittaker, Luther Jerstad, Barry Bishop, Willi Unsoeld, Norman Dyhrenfurth, and Tom Hornbein—arrived in Base Camp for a first attempt at Everest. The ascent almost didn't happen. On March 23, two days after arriving, team member John "Jake" Breitenbach was crushed by a falling wall of ice. Breitenbach was the first to die on the shifting Khumbu Icefall, a much-feared place that would claim at least 17 more lives over the next 38 years.

Finally we got down to the solid rock of Base Camp. I lay in the sun and did a few push-ups. Oh, God—and eat like a horse! It was like being born again. My first meal was Spam. —Jim Whittaker

JIM WHITTAKER, first American to summit Mount Everest: It was a hell of a walk to Base Camp—185 miles. We moved in with quite an army. Nineteen Americans, 37 Sherpas, 907 porters. We were in fantastic shape when we got there; it took almost a month to get in. The place was empty, with a foot and a half of new snow. Everything was as nature intended it to be.

TOM HORNBEIN, who with Willi Unsoeld summited via the perilous West Ridge route that year and completed the first traverse of the mountain: Hmmm, it was a little intimidating, with these big walls around, peeling off stuff that fell down, and then just a mass of rubble that became our home. And then you're looking right into the jaws of the Icefall, and at first encounter that all seems a little bit frightening. I think the first impulse [after Breitenbach's death] was, The game isn't worth killing people, but there was a lot committed, and the idea of turning this whole behemoth around, with all the support that people had put into it in the way of money and expectations, it didn't seem very feasible. And then there was the rationalization—probably not unreasonable—that Jake would not have wished the whole thing to be aborted.

JIM WHITTAKER: [After reaching the summit on May 1], I thought, OK, you made it, but now you've got to get back down. We fought our way down. We had high winds. It was a hell of a climb, and our faces were frostbitten. We got into Camp II and I soaked my feet to get the blackness out of the toes. I'm thinking, I've captured this jewel off the summit, but now I've got to live to tell about it. We raced through the Icefall—just shot through that damn thing. Finally we got down to the solid rock of Base Camp. And it was like coming down into spring. Jesus, it was just incredible. I lay in the sun and did a few push-ups. Oh, God—and eat like a horse! I was just skinny as hell. It was like being born again. My first meal was Spam. And dill pickles. And they'd saved a Rainier beer for me. They were a sponsor.

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