Everest | 29th May 1953 - The First Ascent

 Today is sixty eight  years since the first ascent of Everest.

On 29th May 1953 at 11.30 am, a Sherpa and a New Zealander became the first men to stand on top of the highest peak on this planet.  However the intervening years has seen a sea change as far as Everest is concerned. The mountain  has now become a playground for guided expeditions, with clients paying between thirty thousand  to  eighty thousand dollars or more to stand on the highest point on earth. The South Col route climbed in 1953 is now disdainfully referred to as the “yak trail”. The dangerous icefall below the Western Cwm is maintained by a team of sherpas right through the season led by a senior “Icefall Doctor.” and ropes are fixed from Base Camp to the summit to allow "clients" to reach the top of the mountain. 

Due to the covid pandemic there were no attempts on the mountain in 2020. 

A record number of 400 plus climbers and 40 plus expeditions were  issued climbing permits in 2021 despite the covid wave. 

The large number of climbers, sherpas and support staff at base camp around 1500 or so resulted in a covid outbreak at Base Camp  and as per information received around 100 to 150 covid cases were detected – a majority were evacuated to Kathmandu hospitals and the rest which  were milder cases remained isolated in tents at base camp. Lukas Furtenbach, an Austrian operator, decided to cancel his expedition midway due this high covid risk which he deemed unacceptable.

In an interesting development, a team from Mountain Professionals set out from the South Col at 5 am on May 23rd 2021 and reached the summit by afternoon - possibly the first time in many, many years that a team has climbed Everest in the day enjoying sunny weather, gazing at the magnificent views, warmer temperatures and above all no long lines, headlamps and struggling along in the cold dark night.  There were advised by a  meteorologist  that there would be a day window on the 23rd May and they gladly seized the opportunity and had the mountain to themselves.

However the effect of the two cyclones over India and Nepal hampered the progress of the teams. As I write this post Cyclone Yaas is over Nepal and depositing heavy snow on the slopes of Everest. 

For the first time the Icefall Doctors team have agreed to keep the Icefall open until 3rd June 2021, to allow the remaining teams on the mountain a chance to summit if they are able to get another weather window on 30/31st May 2021.

 Kami Rita Sherpa created a new record this year by summiting Everest 25  times as a part of the Sherpa team who fixed the ropes to the summit  -  perhaps next year Kami will break his own record.

However, this post recounts through photographs,  the 1953 climb, the historic ascent of the first two men to summit Everest and the team of climbers and sherpas who supported them through this endeavour.

Everest West Ridge | The First Ascent May 22nd 1963

 

Tom Horbein

“Evenings were peaceful, smoke settling in the quiet air to soften the dusk, lights twinkling on the ridge we would camp on tomorrow, clouds dimming the outline of our pass for the day after. Growing excitement lured my thoughts again and again to the West Ridge….

There was loneliness, too, as the sun set, but only rarely now did doubts return. Then I felt sinkingly as if my whole life lay behind me. Once on the mountain I knew (or trusted) that this would give way to total absorption with the task at hand. But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find what I really sought was something I had left behind.” ― Thomas F. Hornbein

Today is the 58th anniversary of the first ascent of the West ridge of Everest and the first traverse of the mountain.

On 21^st May 1963 at six o’clock in the evening two climbers reached 27,205 feet (8300 metres) to set up Camp 5W on the west ridge of Everest. Tom Horbein a US anesthesiologist then 32 years old and Willi Unsoeld , a mountain guide then 36 years of age were poised for the final push to the summit of Everest by a new route.

It had not been easy for these two men. The 1963 American Everest Expedition led by Norman Dyhrenfurth had squarely set its sights on a first American ascent by the South Col route. On May 1^{st 1963}, Jim Whittaker accompanied by Sherpa Nawang Gombu, Tenzing’s nephew, made the first American ascent to become the fifth and six men to stand of the summit after the British in 1953 and Swiss in 1954.

Everest Reconnaissance Expedition 1921 | 100 Years Ago

 

Members of the  1921 expedition Standing: Wollaston, Howard-Bury, Heron, Raeburn.  Sitting: Mallory, Wheeler, Bullock, Morshead. The ninth member Alexander Kellas had passed away en route to Everest on 5th June 1921

2021 is 100 years of the first Everest Reconnaissance Expedition 1921. On January 11th 1921 this is what Sir Francis Younghusband said in The Times London:

From The Times: January 11, 1921

Sir Francis Younghusband, President of the Royal Geographical Society, announced at a meeting of the Society last night that the political obstacles to the proposed attempt to climb Mount Everest have been removed, that a preliminary reconnaissance will be made of the ground this year, and that the actual attempt on the summit will follow in 1922.