George Mallory: 8th June 1924

" I cannot tell you how it possesses me...." George Mallory

The spectacular Kangshung face of Everest seen from the Kharta Glacier on the 1921 Reconnaissance expedition

On 8th June 1924, two men left  Camp VI (26,700 feet)  to make an attempt on the summit of Everest. Camp VI  was the highest camp of the British 1924 Everest expedition.

On the same morning, another British climber, Noel Odell, was making his way up from Camp IV to Camp VI. Odell was a geologist and he was collecting fossils from the slopes of Mount Everest. Odell recalls that it was not the perfect morning to climb Everest. " Rolling banks of mist" were sweeping  across the mountain and covering the north face. Neither the face nor the summit ridge could be seen by Odell. There was also a sharp wind which was making climbing very difficult.

Suddenly at 12.50 pm the mist cleared and Odell spotted high above on the ridge, a black dot climbing a rock step, which Odell at that point identified as the Second Step. Soon after Odell saw another black dot following the first black dot. But before Odell could be sure that the second black dot had joined the first,  the mist rolled in and blanketed the mountain and this fantastic vision was lost forever.

The two dots that Odell saw were George Mallory and Andrew Irvine "going strongly for the summit of Everest". Mallory and Irvine were never seen again.

But even today, ninety one years after the disappearance of Mallory and Irvine, the legend of Mallory is still alive. Books are being written about Mallory, expeditions are being planned to find Andrew Irvine and his camera because Everest experts believe that the camera will unlock the secret of Mallory's last climb.

In this post we take a look at some photographs and other memorabilia from the Everest expeditions of 1921, 1922 and 1924.

" Higher in the sky  than imagination had ventured to dream, the top of Everest itself appeared" George Mallory

Odell's photograph from the pass of Pang La shows the entire Himalayan chain from the Tibetan plateau with Everest standing just 35 miles away

A  current day telephoto view of Everest from the Pang La  identifying the important features of the mountain - please click on the photo to enlarge.

Mallory and Irvine before boarding the ship S S California  which they took to India on the 1924 expedition

Members of the 1924 expedition - Standing from left Irvine, Mallory, Norton, Odell, Macdonald. In front: Shebbeare, Bruce, Somervell, Beetham. Members not in the photo : Noel, Hingston, Hazard.

" Again and for the last time we advance up the Rongbuk Glacier for victory or final defeat" George Mallory 

The last photograph of Mallory and Irvine leaving for Camp Six for their summit bid from the North Col 

The list of provisions for the summit climb found on Mallory's body  - he planned to be on 2 cylinders of oxygen. Please note the rations on the left!

Original oxygen cylinders of the 1924 expedition preserved at the Planters Club, Darjeeling

The 8 pm in the note is a typo Mallory meant 8 am!

The note that Odell recovered from the tent at Camp VI  - Mallory had no compass on  his last climb

Before leaving for Everest - Mallory with his daughter Clare

A letter from  Mallory to his  children  from Everest

"..... some day you will hear a different story..." George Mallory

Tenzing Norgay Birth Centenary Commemorative Lecture with The Himalayan Club

On 27th June 2014 at the Rotary Sadan, Kolkata I delivered the Tenzing Norgay Birth Centenary Commemorative Lecture organised by The Himalayan Club - Kolkata Section. A review of the evening was given in The Telegraph Kolkata Metro edition on June 30th 2014.

Little-known facts about the humble man of the hills — who, with Edmund Hillary, was the first to set foot on the world’s highest peak — tumbled out at a presentation by freelance photojournalist Sujoy Das before the city’s climbing enthusiasts. The presentation, which combined black-and-white pictures, maps and anecdotes to bring Tenzing’s epic journey back to life, was organised on Friday by The Himalayan Club to pay homage to the sherpa on his birth centenary. Tenzing was born Namgyal Wangdi. The lama of Tibet’s Rongbuk Monastery, Dzadrul Rimpoche, said he was the reincarnate of a wealthy man and changed his name to Norgay, which means “fortunate” in Tibetan. Tenzing, part of the lama’s original name, was added to it. Das’s presentation harped on a couple of key moments in Tenzing’s life. The first was an epidemic in Tibet, which killed all the yaks of Tenzing’s father Ghang La Mingma. This necessitated a teenaged Tenzing and Dawa Thondup, seven years his senior and member of the historic 1953 Everest climb, to make a trip to Nepal’s Kumbhu region on foot and eventually to Darjeeling, where foreign expedition teams hired sherpas. “Had it not been for the epidemic, Tenzing would probably have been happy tending to his father’s yaks and wouldn’t have made history,” said Das. Tenzing was rejected many times as sherpa before his “grin rather than his experience” impressed British expedition leader Eric Shipton in 1935. The youth from Tibet set off “learning by looking” and soon made a name for himself. By this time he had married his teenage sweetheart Dawa Phuti, the first of his three marriages. Phuti died at a young age leaving behind two daughters. Das pointed out that European climbers, especially “class conscious” Britons finally accepted Tenzing as one of their own. “After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, the approach to Everest through the north closed down and a southern route was explored. It was found to be easier (than the northern route) if one could handle a tricky ice fall, which claimed the lives of 16 sherpas this April,” said Das. By the early 1950s, it became evident that conquering Everest was a matter of time and Tenzing was caught in a tug-of-war between Swiss and British teams.  Tenzing by then demanded that he be given the status of a climber rather than a sirdar — or leader of sherpas and manager of supplies — by a British team led by John Hunt and was granted his wish. A member of Hunt’s team was Edmund Hillary from New Zealand. In fact, at their final camp at 27,640ft, a record at the time, Tenzing had spent an extremely cold night in the same camp as Hillary, sharing supplies. The next morning, they made the first successful climb to the top of the world. Funnily, when Tenzing went to meet his mother in Thami on the way down and told her of his feat, she was elated but only because “you will not have to climb mountains any more”. After the expedition, Hillary and Hunt were knighted but Tenzing was conferred a much less prestigious George Medal. He, however, went to London and accepted it. When the queen asked Ang Lahmu, his second wife, what she gifted Tenzing after he came down from Everest, she replied a “big tin of condensed milk”. “He could use it. He was fatigued after the climb,” quipped Das. Years later, when his son Jamling wanted to start Himalayan expeditions, Tenzing had put his foot down saying he had climbed himself so that his son would not have to.  A slide showed the famous words of his father: “You can’t see the entire world from the top of Everest, Jamling”. Jamling, however, could not ignore the call of the mountains and climbed Everest in 1996. He returned to Everest in 2002, but only till the base camp, when he and Hillary’s son Peter were invited to be part of an expedition to mark the 50th anniversary of the first ascent.  http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140630/jsp/calcutta/story_18565319.jsp#.U7K4lfmSywQ Share on emailShare on printShare on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services

Ten Great Books on the Himalaya

This is my personal list of ten "must read" books on the Himalaya in no particular order!

 

In 1934, Eric Shipton and Bill Tilman made an amazing  exploratory attempt and reached the fabled Nanda Devi sanctuary in the Garhwal Himalaya. Noted mountaineer Hugh Ruttledge and former Commissioner of the erstwhile United Provinces described the Nanda Devi massif as “ a seventy mile barrier ring on which stand 12 measured peaks over 21,000 feet high. The Rishi Gorge, rising at the foot of Nanda Devi and draining an area of some 250 miles of snow and ice has carved for itself what must be one of the most terrific gorges in the world. So tremendous is the aspect of the Rishi Gorge that Hindu mythology described it as the last earthly home of the Seven Rishis. Here if anywhere, their meditations might be undisturbed”. The two climbers assisted by the indomitable sherpa Angtharkay and his team  made an dramatic exit from the sanctuary via Sunderdhunga khal.   Subsequently in 1936, Bill Tilman and Noel Odell summited the peak.  These two books now released together give an insight into the exploration of the Nanda Devi basin and as well as the climb. One of my favourites!

"It’s a preposterous plan. Still, if you do get up it, I think it’ll be the hardest thing that’s been done in the Himalayas.’ So spoke Chris Bonington when Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker presented him with their plan to tackle the unclimbed West Wall of Changabang – the Shining Mountain – in 1976. Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker made it to the summit from base camp without any sherpa support. The duo designed  hammocks to sleep every night as the sheer west face of the mountain would not provide a ledge to pitch a tent! Hauling their own supplies and equipment up the mountain, this was probably the most outstanding achievement of their climbing careers. Sadly in 1982  both climbers were lost heading for the summit of Everest on the north east ridge over 8000 metres. Boardman is an outstanding writer and this is one of the most gripping books in mountaineering history.



In 1931 while descending from  from a successful expedition to Kamet, Frank Smythe and R L Holdsworth entered a valley in the Himalaya on a wet monsoon day. In Holdsworth's words " All of a sudden, I realised I was simply surrounded by primulas. Forgotten were all the pains and cold and lost porters. And what a primula it was..  six inches high, its flowers were enormous for it's stature.. and in colour of the most heavenly French blue, sweetly scented." In 1937, Smythe returned to the Bhyundar valley and spent four happy months camping and climbing in the valley. At the end of the expedition, the team is also made a successful ascent of Mana Peak. In Smythe's words " so ended the the longest, grandest and hardest  mountain climb of our lives".




The 1963 the American Everest expedition had a number of firsts to their credit - the first climb of the West Ridge by Unsoeld and Horbein and the first traverse of the mountain as well as a high altitude bivouac on the slopes of Everest. Four climbers survived to tell the tale but at a dreadful cost - Unsoeld lost nine toes and Bishop six to frostbite. Jerstad and Horbein were lucky to get away unscathed. In  Everest- The West Ridge Horbein wrote "The night was overpoweringly empty. Stars shed cold, unshimmering light. The heat lightning dancing along the plains spoke of a world of warmth and flatness. The black silhouette ofLhotse lurked half-sensed, half-seen, still below. Only the ridge we were on rose higher, disappearing into the night, a last lonely outpost of the world." A tremendous read! 

There have been many books written about the Everest expeditions 1921, 1922 and 1924 but none as comprehensive and well researched as this six hundred odd pages thesis by Wade Davis! The book also  deals with World War I and the effect it had on the Everest climbers, an angle not explored earlier. The book throws up some interesting insights like the surveyor Oliver  Wheeler finding the route through the East Rongbuk glacier  to Everest and not  George Mallory!  For sheer detailing, meticulous research and fact finding, Wade Davis's book will be hard to beat! Highly recommended!

In 1973 the famous naturalist George Schaller accompanied by Peter Matthieson made a journey to the Crystal Mountain in  Western Nepal to research the bharal (blue sheep).  This book almost metaphysical in it journey, traces the route  to the Crystal  mountain, Shey and Phoksumdo lake and the land of Dolpo situated in the rain shadow of the Himalaya. . Matthiesen is  student of Zen Buddhism and book other than being an exploratory journey develops into a quest for the meaning of Being. Mattheisen says " Upon the path.... lies the yellow and grey blue feather of an unknown bird. And there comes a piercing intuition, by no means understood, that in this feather on the silver path, this rhythm of wood and leather sounds, ... sun and wind, and the rush of the river, in a landscape without past or future time- in this instant...transience and eternity, death and life are one."

In 1849, Joseph Dalton Hooker a British botanist accompanied by Dr Campbell made an exploration into remote Sikkim in search of the rhododendron and other flowers. This pioneering journey is told in two volumes and covers what must be the first  documented  survey of Sikkim. Not only did Hooker visit Western Sikkim including Dzongri and the Goecha la, he went from Choontam (now called Chungthang) all the way to the Tibetan frontier and then reached the high pass of Dongkya La from where he overlooked Cholamu lake and Tibet. I was fortunate enough in  the summer of 1987 to stand on another pass east of Dongkya la, the Dorji La and see a similar view which had prompted Hooker to say "... here the colourings are those of the fiery desert.. while the climate is that of the poles. Never in the course of all my wanderings, had my eye rested on a scene so dreary and inhospitable." For all lovers of Sikkim do not miss this book!

Jon Krakauer was a journalist with Outside Magazine and was sent to cover the guided Everest expedition as a part of Rob Hall's Adventure Consultants team in the summer of 1996. Krakauer summitted Everest and lived to tell the tale but other members were not so lucky. A fierce storm lashed Everest on 10th May 1996 and at the end of it five climbers lost their lives including highly respected guides Hall and Fischer. Krakauer's book which catapulted Everest from the ciy  realms of the Himalaya into the drawing rooms of the United States reads like a gripping thriller - it also dwells on decisions which can go horribly wrong at those rarefied altitudes leading to disastrous consequences. A good book to read after this is Anatoli Boukreev's Climb which presents Boukreev's account of the 1996 disaster.


In 1899, Douglas Freshfield accompanied by the famous Italian photographer Vittorio Sella set off from Darjeeling to make the first circuit of Kangchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world.The team went up the Teesta valley and into the Zemu glacier. They could not cross the Nepal and Zemu Gaps due to the great storm of September 24th 1899. They then entered the Lhonak valley and crossed the Jonsong La into Nepal. They travelled through Ghunsa and crossed back into Sikkim through the passes of Chunjerma and Kang la reaching Dzongri and the Goeche La. Sella's magnificent photographs, especially of Jannu from Chunjerma and Siniolchu from the Zemu valley stand out even today. The book has been out of print  but I did see a reprint  it in Pilgrims bookshop in Kathmandu.

Included in" the 100 best adventure books of all time", Terray account of his climbs in the Alps and Himalayas make heady reading. He was a French climber who climbed Makalu in 1955 and Cerro  Fitzroy in Patagonia in 1962. He was also a member of Herzog's Annapurna 1950 expedition where with a Sherpa  he assisted Herzog and Lachenal down from the mountain. Terray returned to the forefront when he was part of the team who rescued four climbers from the north face of the Eiger in 1957. Possibly his best achievement in the mountaineering world was the first ascent of Jannu in 1962. After climbing Alaska's Mount Huntingdon in 1965, Terray said "If the conquest of a great peak brings moments of exultation and bliss, which in the monotonous, materialistic existence of modern times nothing else can approach, it also presents great dangers. It is not the goal of *grand alpinisme* to face peril, but it is one of the tests one must undergo to deserve the joy of rising for an instant above the state of crawling grubs." 

Alexander Kellas: Mountaineering's Unsung Hero

Sunday , January 8 , 2012  Up above the world so high Mount Kangchenjau, in whose shadow Kellas (picture below) is buried. (Picture by Sujoy Das) On June 5, 1921, on a windswept plain in Tibet, Lt-Col. Howard Bury, the leader of the Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition, had a very unhappy task to perform. He was to preside over the last rites of Dr Alexander Mitchell Kellas, 53, who was the first casualty of the expedition and died before the team could reach the foot of Mount Everest. So, with Bury reading from the Corinthians, surrounded by his team of Everest climbers and the Sherpas, Kellas was buried near the Tibetan fortress of Khamba Dzong in the shadow of the three mountains which he alone had climbed — Kangchenjau, Pauhunri and Chomiomo. As the team made its way to the Rongbuk base camp, one of the finest mountaineers of his generation passed into oblivion. Kellas was no ordinary mountaineer. He was a Scottish doctor of chemistry, an expert in high-altitude physiology and, above all, a Himalayan explorer. He was the first to promulgate the theory that it would be possible to ascent Everest without artificial oxygen in his pioneering paper A consideration of the possibility of ascending Mount Everest. Fifty-eight years later, in 1978, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler proved Kellas right when they made that epic first ascent, the climbers gasping for breath and crawling on all fours along the final summit ridge. Kellas was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1868 and studied at University College, London. He travelled to Heidelberg, Germany, for his PhD and returned to take up a lectureship at Middlesex Hospital, where he was highly regarded as a chemistry teacher. But his first love remained mountaineering and exploration. Kellas was reclusive to a fault and wrote very little about his exploits. He undertook eight Himalayan expeditions between 1907 and 1921. Six of them were in Sikkim, where he made the first ascents of Pauhunri (7,128 metres), Chomiomo (6,829 metres), Sentinel Peak (6,470 metres), Langpo (6,950 metres) and Kangchenjau (6,920 metres), assisted solely by Sherpas. On his first Himalayan expedition in 1907, Kellas had hired Swiss guides, but he soon realised he preferred the Sherpas from Darjeeling. “Really, they are the most splendid fellows,” he wrote. “They are strong, good-natured if fairly treated and since they are Buddhists, there is no difficulty about special food for them — a point surely in their favour at high altitudes.” It was primarily due to Kellas’s pioneering efforts that links were formed between British mountaineers and the Sherpas, which became the backbone of all Everest expeditions since 1921. In 1920, Kellas undertook an expedition to Kamet in  the Garhwal where, along with Henry Morshead, he tested oxygen equipment at high altitudes in preparation for the first Everest expedition the next year. Kellas would possibly have climbed Kamet had it not been for a porters' rebellion. Morshead later climbed up to 7,650 metres on Everest in 1922 accompanied by Mallory, Norton and Somervell. In 1921, as a run-up to the Everest expedition, Kellas and a team of Sherpas made an unsuccessful attempt on Kabru (7,338 metres) in the Sikkim Himalayas. Nine days later, a weary Kellas started out on the Everest expedition to Tibet, which would be his last. Tom Longstaff climbed Trishul (7,120 metres) in 1907 and supposedly held the high altitude record until 1930. But it was later proved by Kellas's biographer Ian Mitchell that the record belonged to Kellas, as Pauhunri, which he climbed in 1911, was eight metres higher than Trishul. In 1930 the Kangchenjunga expedition led by Gunther Dyrenfurth had named a shapely 6,680-metre peak north of Jonsong as Kellas Peak. This peak, interestingly, is unclimbed till date and in 2009 a team of British mountaineers including Graham Hoyland and George Rodway, were able to reach the Kellas Col at 6,380 metres, where avalanches and crevasses prevented them from making a summit bid. Kellas has always been overshadowed by the likes of Mallory, Smythe and Shipton, but Everest historian Walt Unsworth in his epic Everest - A Mountaineering History, wrote: "In terms of Himalayan experience he [Kellas] was the greatest of all." Kellas’s years in anonymity may now end. The story of his life has been documented inPrelude to Everest: Alexander Kellas, Himalayan Mountaineer, by Ian R. Mitchell and George Rodway, published in 2011. It should finally give the explorer his deserving place in the annals of mountaineering. Sujoy Das (The writer is a Calcutta-based photographer and trekker)

Primulas and Frank Smythe

In the summer of 1987, I think it was late May, I walked with Brigadier Sidhu and Major B V Naresh of the Indian Army from Thangu in North Sikkim to the village of Muguthang in the Lhonak Valley. On the way, you have to cross the Lhonak La pass which was snow bound due to unseasonal spring snowfall. These primulas were blooming on a meadow just before the climb to the pass. Looking at them, I was reminded of R.L. Holdsworth's comments in Frank Smythe's book The Valley of Flowers which I reproduce here.

" All of a sudden I realised that I was simply surrounded by primulas. At once the day seemed to brighten perceptibly. Forgotten were all pains and cold and lost porters. And what a primula it was! All over shelves and terraces it grew often with roots in running water. At the most it stood six inches high, but it's flowers were enormous in stature and ample in number.... In all my mountain wanderings I had not seen a more beautiful flower than this primula....."

My sentiments as well on seeing these primulas bloom below the pass on that misty May morning with snow threatening!