Beyond the Edge Page #5

---

The thing about

open-circuit oxygen sets

is that they use a lot of oxygen,

so he would have to get

an awful lot of oxygen

up onto the South Col

and to the Southeast Ridge,

so he sort of thought,

"Well, no, we're not gonna

be able to do this,"

But there was an alternative form

of oxygen set,

which was called a closed circuit,

The closed-circuit,

when you breathe out

the carbon dioxide

goes through a canister

of something called soda lime,

which extracts the carbon dioxide

and gives you back the oxygen

into the set,

and you're completely insulated

from the outside air,

Now, if it works, the closed system

can be more efficient

than the open-circuit system,

The people who are using

the closed-circuit set

can start from lower down,

But the thing about

a closed-circuit set

was that the only person

who really knew how to use them

was the person who had

designed them, Tom Bourdillon,

And the first attempt on the summit,

using the closed-circuit oxygen,

was to be made by Tom Bourdillon

with Charles Evans,

John Hunt went ahead

to the South Col in support,

Evans and Bourdillon

left Advanced Base

down in the Western Cwm

and climbed up the South Col

to camp,

Tom and Charles

were to go all the way

from the South Col to the top,

I thought at the time

they had a chance,

but it was a hell of a long way,

If Bourdillon

and Evans reach the summit,

John Hunt might go, "Job done,

"We're all going home,

Everyone's safe,"

But the weather closed in and

everyone got stuck for two days,

including Bourdillon and Evans

on the South Col,

My father and Tenzing

left Advanced Base

down on the Western Cwm

to come up to the South Col

to be the second summit team,

Well, we left

Base Camp in the Western Cwm,

There was our support party -

George Lowe, Alf Gregory

and several Sherpas,

And then Tenzing and myself,

who were the actual assault party,

with the open-circuit,

As my father and

Tenzing were departing from Camp 4,

Bourdillon and Evans were

making their summit bid,

Well,

we went up the Lhotse Face

and across the long traverse

that leads up to the South Col,

And we're just about

up to the South Col

when we notice the support party,

George started shouting

and jumping around,

And we looked up

and we saw Evans and Bourdillon

going up the tiny little peak

far above us,

onto the top of the South Summit,

I think it was somewhere

around about 12:
00 in the morning,

and we thought, "Ooh, they've...

South Summit, 12:00,

"They've time to get to the top,

"They're going to climb it,"

You know, when

Bourdillon and Evans went out of sight,

there would've been

very high emotions,

because these guys wanted

to be up there,

We crossed over

and reached the South Col,

A little later in the day,

we kept an eye out

for the clouds that

come over the mountain,

and we were a bit worried

about Evans and Bourdillon,

But, uh, I think

it was about 3:
30,

George once again

caught sight of them

coming down the couloir

from the Southeast Ridge,

down towards the South Col,

And it was a long time

before they actually started

to come down,

And when they were coming down,

they were clearly very, very tired,

When Bourdillon

and Evans came down,

Dad walked out to meet them,

People tend to see it in terms of

this really good guy going out

to meet them and help them back,

and there was that, absolutely,

But there was another part,

which was inside, where he...

..he wanted to climb this mountain,

He needed to know,

"Where did they get to?"

And they told us

that they'd reached

the South Summit alright,

had a look at the summit ridge,

but hadn't had sufficient time or oxygen

or energy to go any further,

They were in a terrible state,

Most of the day Charles Evans

had been climbing with an oxygen set

which didn't work properly,

so he'd been inhaling

carbon dioxide as well as oxygen,

But I think also Tom Bourdillon was

very... emotionally in a bad state,

because it really meant

a lot to him, you know,

He had designed this oxygen set

which had failed,

So they were in a bad way,

physically and emotionally as well,

Tom Bourdillon kept saying,

"We should've had a go,

"We should've gone on,"

you know,

"We should've gone on,"

Evans and Bourdillon

were very strong,

very experienced climbers,

Having climbed higher than any

human beings had ever been before...

..having got to the South Summit

and looked across at this final,

almost knife-edged ridge,

Charles Evans did say to Ed Hillary

something like,

"That last ridge looks really hard,

I don't know if you can do it,"

Above 26,000 feet

is what we call the death zone,

because you are slowly dying,

It's not a place for humans,

John Hunt was a leader

leading from the front,

And as the front now

was up above the South Col,

that's why he wanted to stay,

and we realised that he really

wasn't strong enough to stay,

It was a classic case

of someone having been

too high too long,

He'd gone beyond the limit,

like Tom Bourdillon

and Charles Evans,

And he was eventually persuaded

to go down with them,

They were exhausted

and we were worried about them

and we dug out some oxygen

to help them,

Well, I hated

to leave the col,

but after a certain amount

of discussion,

I saw that I could not weaken

the second party,

So I left Ed with the parting

instruction not to give in,

This was a great moment

on the expedition

in which the leader sacrifices

his own personal ambition,

and Ed Hillary says,

"Never at any moment

"have I respected John Hunt more,"

You know,

it was touch and go,

because the monsoon comes

in the first week of June,

and it was tight,

on the last days of May,

For Hillary and Tenzing

to make an attempt on the summit,

they couldn't go from the South Col,

because they would have to carry

too much oxygen,

So the only way was to start from

higher up, then go for the summit,

The following day

was extremely windy and cold,

and no movement upwards

was possible,

We spent the day preparing

the oxygen and gear,

with the hope that the following day

would prove clear and fine,

They would use oxygen

at night, flowing at a very low rate,

because it would help them sleep

and make them feel

slightly warmer as well,

Night-time is a tough time,

You lay there

listening to the mountain...

..listening to the wind,

listening to the avalanche,

Thinking, "Oh, my God," you know,

Demons come,

The original plan was

that Gregory and three Sherpas

would carry the high camp,

One Sherpa had collapsed on the col

and gone down previously,

leaving us two Sherpas,

On the morning of the day

we intended to do the carry,

we poked our head

into the pyramid tent

and found Sherpa Pemba

in a very bad condition,

It was obvious

that he wouldn't carry,

and so we had the job

of sharing the load,

First of all,

early in the day

we knew that we'd have to reorganise

the loads and take more,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes