Camp III. (20,500 ft. approx., at the top of the icefall). Very end of April.
WAKENED 6.30 with a cup of tea; this is projected through the Meade tent door by an arm at whose end is the grinning face of Gompu, our self-appointed Sherpa orderly. Can’t understand, as ever, how I can have slept so long, and with no pills; on an average, I suppose, this expedition sleeps 9-10 hours a night.
I lie and read for a bit, .html luxury, and watch the condensation snow showers falling from the Meade roof. My sleeping bag is dry outside; some things are a bit wet, particularly my down coat which I use as a pillow. They will dry out. I don’t have to use the down coat in bed yet, these New Zealand sleeping bags are warmth itself.
Out at 7.0. No great dressing problem. Long pants I do swop for thin cotton pyjamas, over which I put windproof trousers. But my string vest and shirt – I’m ashamed to think it’s over a fortnight since I changed these. One doesn’t seem to get dirty up here, and at night it is too cold for changing. So I climb out into a rather leaden morning; in the Alps one. would say snow all day. But we seem to be getting a regular routine of fine mornings and snow only in the afternoons. The pure snow triangle of Pumori’s summit greets me opposite, at the tent door; and a whole strange world of ice-blocks and snow towers is at my feet. I say blocks though some of them are larger than the largest cathedral. We are perched on the very top of the icefall Here, looking over to the right I can see where the level glacier halts in its flow.
Breakfast 7.15. A large plate of porridge to which I add grape- nuts. Neither Gregory nor I feel like bacon. I don’t think this is the height’s fault, but the bacon’s. In other ways we are eating well; only the Yak stew last night defeated us. Breakfast done, .html climb out, to visit the Sherpas. We have seven of these to ferry loads, dumped here by Sherpa teams from below, up to Camp IV near the head of the "Western Cwm." They’re a fine, willing, carefree lot; sometimes with the grumps of children, compensated by ungrudging peals of laughter. Usually there are one or two headaches or sore throats, sometimes one of them cannot start. Then I sort the loads to be taken up; the Sherpas breakfast in the yellow pyramid tent, climb out, resort them and attach them to their carrying frames. By 8.45 the sun is up, and we are ready to go. No starting before dawn in the Himalaya; it is too cold, nobody grudges the extra hours in luxurious sleeping bag.
There are four Sherpas on my rope, three on Gregory’s. As the photographic expert of the expedition, he hopes to get pictures of our various doings. We start slowly, up a snow-hump to the left, and in ten minutes are at the first obstacle. This is a wide and deep crevasse straight across our path, now bridged securely by three of the sixfoot sections of our aluminium ladder. The crossing is comfortable on all fours, the Sherpas seem to enjoy it. Indeed it’s a fascinating view down through the rungs, down at the blue lumps and chunks that strew the crevasse bottom. A few minutes after this we have ourselves to go down some 20 feet into .html chasm, and out over snow steps the other side. On this third day of our journey the Sherpas make light of it. Familiarity has increased confidence, and besides, they are rapidly learning the technique of safeguarding a companion quickly, with rope held round ice-axe head.
Both these passages take us very close under the left hand wall of the Cwm, in effect the west shoulder of Everest. Now, the route pioneered by John Hunt, Hillary, Evans and Tenzing, seeks the open glacier of the centre, and then the easier right hand flank, to surmount the slight rise into the " Upper-Cwm" under the face of Lhotse. Already over the flat-looking plain, we can see the red flags with which I littered the route yesterday; it looks something like a snow-covered golf course. But to achieve the farthest flags, we have to wander considerably: up and down small humps, with the occasional step to be chipped still, then a hundred yards left, then right again, to avoid some blue-glinting pit; altogether it is an hour and a quarter before we are at the foot of the mal rise. We pause. Gregory photographs. I take off all the clothes I can, roll up my sleeves and apply more glacier cream. The sun is very hot, playing with us as in an oven. But beard and lengthening hair seem to be protecting me well. I wear no hat, knowing my sad tendency to lose all headgear.
The route is now up the right-hand side of this vast mountain hollow: almost overhanging us are the sheer black and yellow streaked cliffs of Nüptse, interspersed with straight slivers of ice glittering in the heat; ahead is the serrated ridge of Lhotse, looking strangely frail beside the black straight pyramid now dominating the whole basin: Everest, its western cliff dropping 7,000 feet to our glacier. Between them the South Col, our aim and aspiration, is slung like a clothes-line above icy-looking slopes. These will be the second crux of our climb.
By this time, after many detours, we are on the more level plateau of the cwm’s head, resting over our axes. We distribute and suck sweets. Distances are deceptive. It looks no way at all to the far aide, under the Everest cliff, where Camp IV will be. But it is an hour’s plod, rising slightly, not enough to make you puff. Leading, I curse the new snow that has blown in from yesterday afternoon’s fall; it is like breaking a new trail. I adjust a couple of Rags. We rest again, but not as long as yesterday. It is amazing, how three days up here have acclimatized us to the height and eased our breathing. We are going now almost as we would do in the Alps.
At last. A glance to the left, and there are the boxes. Two hundred slow yards, and we have arrived. The time is 12.20. Most of the boxes are Swiss, for this was the Swiss Camp IV too. Ovosport, Nescafé, cheese, orange juice – these luxuries have been refrigerated for us through the winter. Now they can be used to give variety to our diet. But listen – a noise from the left, from the west shoulder. An avalanche. A crack, slow boom as blocks detach from the tottering ice-cliff hundreds of feet up. Falling, they shatter to powder, which rolls down in waves to float smokily over the valley floor. Gregory outs his camera and clicks quickly. I stand entranced at the sight. Thank goodness our site is safely away from that wall.
Some "raspberry jam snow," and some chocolate. We don’t feel like eating much. Then, the return journey, with no loads. The afternoon snow has now begun to fall, lightly. But it is still so hot, that we cannot bear to put windproofs over our shirt sleeves. The mood of the Sherpas is very different. From being really tired and hot, lying like dogs in the snow, they are now singing and eating, careering down, grudging the Sahibs the lead. The crevasses still need caution. But the stretches between, jolting and prodding, joking and sliding, go quickly. The traverse back across the plain demands its detours; there are irritating rises, tiring because body and breath are adjusted to a downhill rhythm. Snow is still falling, and the clouds have darkened. We pass near the old Swiss Camp III, a dreary little pile of Pemmican tins. Half an hour later, we are hopping the last crevasse, and down to the snow-covered tents.
Tom Stobart, the Expedition cinematographer, is waiting. He has come up for the night, and hopes to film the bridge-crossing. So we sit together over tea, very slowly boiled from snow, followed by soup, followed by tea again. The body has become dehydrated from its efforts at this height; and gratefully we swallow the liquid back. Seven pints a day we have been ordered to drink. We arrived back at 2.45, and by 4.30 I have wriggled into my sleeping bag, where I stay, with excursions to give pills and cigarettes to Sherpas, to order supper and the like. Supper we have at 6.30, as the day darkens. Soup, tinned steak and kidney, tinned cake. We can’t get potatoes to keep up here. Then a mug of coffee, and the best moment of the day with a cigarette. I’ve had some good pipes, but they’re hard to keep alight. Then a read by candle-light, but this is awkward: squirm, wriggle, hip-joint wrong, wriggle again and lose the place. By 8.0 I have decided I must pump my Lilo for the last time.
It’s a curious Lilo. If I pump really hard last thing at night, it will just stay up till about 6.0 in the morning. So I pump away, and as I do so, a strange light seems to be shining through the tent wall. I must climb out. In front and across the valley like a Dominican’s cowl awry, the white pyramid of Pumori, with the two Lingtrens, reflects the moonlight back to us; the more ghostly from wreaths of mist that veil and tangle the outlines of each peak. Nearer, the slanting ridge of Nuptse, cut by black ice- shadows, has caught the light; the square cake-like chunks of the icefall are still a grey half-tone. And behind, as I look up the great ravine of the Cwm, I can see the ridge of Lhotse slashing the rising moon’s silver disc.
I remain absorbed, unwilling to lose a detail; until my frozen feet jerk me back to the world of tents, Lilos, sleeping bags – prosaic necessities which up here refuse to be ignored for long. I climb in. 8.20. It is but too true, as H. W. Tilman says of the Himalayan mountaineer, that "his worst enemy is bedsores, his best friend is the chest of books" (I quote from memory). It is comforting that this idleness is imposed upon us. Anyway, no more reading; sleep, for the next 10 hours.
Next Day.– It didn’t work out quite like that. At 10 p.m. I woke up to a miniature snowfall on my face. Book, bedding and rucksack were lightly covered. My torch could not detect any one point of origin. After a bit gave it up, curled in the unsnowy patches and slept again, hood over head. Like other problems, this would have to wait.