Beyond the Edge Page #6

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George Lowe and I and Ang Nyima

left about a quarter to nine,

Ed and Tenzing left

the South Col an hour behind us

to conserve their energy

and to go faster through our steps

and so conserve their oxygen,

And we took off carrying

between 50 and 60 pounds,

and Ed, I think we estimated his

at 63 pounds,

which is quite an enormous load

for that altitude,

The wind was very strong

on the col,

We had very difficult conditions,

We moved up this ridge

looking for a flat spot,

For a long time

we couldn't find a camp site...

..until at last Tenzing found one,

a nearly flat spot

underneath a rocky bluff,

They helped us

to the highest camp

ever put up on Everest

or any other mountain,

at 27,900 feet,

No-one had ever camped

this high before,

George Lowe and Alf Gregory

take a few pictures

and then shake hands and say,

"Well, 'bye now, Good luck,

"We'd better be off down,"

And then there's

a wonderfully poignant moment,

Ang Nyima

is very tired, he should go down,

But he said to Dad

that he wanted to stay

so he could make some tea when

they came down, and help them,

I know Dad was

very touched by that,

But eventually they start

back down again,

Leaving Hillary and Tenzing

completely alone,

It was with

certain feelings of sorrow

that we saw George and Greg

and Sherpa Ang Nyima

descending down the mountain,

leaving us up there all alone,

We'd have much preferred to have

a bit of company for the night,

However, they had to get down -

our oxygen was running short,

You 're totally

on your own, really out on a limb,

There's no radio contact

with anyone,

You could disappear

and everyone will just wonder,

"Whatever happened to them?"

I think it would've been

very exciting,

very lonely and very scary,

It took us two

hours of solid work to set up the tent

on two strips of ground

a yard wide and 10 feet long,

Towards the top of Everest,

you get these

very, very powerful winds,

and they were very precariously

attached to this slope

and all the time they're worried

they're gonna be

blown off the mountain,

When the wind

gets up in the evening

you're in

quite a dangerous position

because you're pinned

to the mountain,

The noise is really frightening,

That night was the coldest

ever recorded on the expedition,

It's such

a dehydrating environment,

and there's only one way

to make water,

and that is you have to melt

snow or ice,

You 're breathing eight times more

than you are at sea level,

You can lose more than a litre a day

just from the heavy breathing

at high altitude,

In addition, the air is so dry

that it sucks the moisture

right from your skin,

I made myself

as comfortable as possible,

half sitting and half reclining

on the upper shelf,

It wasn't comfortable, but I could

at least brace my feet and shoulders

to help our meagre anchors

hold the tent in the gusts of wind,

High-altitude climbing

is all about being comfortable

in uncomfortable places,

He was very good at basic

day-to-day survival, as was Tenzing,

and I think that's where

they really scored,

Early in the night,

the wind dropped,

We had some oxygen,

which we used for sleeping purposes

for about four hours

out of the 16 hours we spent there,

For the four hours, at least,

we did doze,

but as soon as the oxygen cut out

we'd immediately wake up

and start feeling cold,

He's all the time thinking,

"I don't want to use

tomorrow's oxygen,"

There's just little things go wrong,

They've lugged up an enormous

black oxygen cylinder

which they planned to use

for sleeping oxygen,

But, unfortunately,

having lugged this bottle up,

they discovered that somebody has

gone back with the adaptor for it,

so the bottle is useless,

Well,

I didn't have the complete conviction

that we were going to be

successful,

I was very aware of the fact

that very good expeditions

had attempted the mountain

and had got very high

but had not succeeded,

At 6:
30am we started off

from our tent,

We wasted no time in preparing

the oxygen apparatus and equipment,

It's all about oxygen

at this point,

Hillary is constantly

thinking about this,

"How much oxygen do I need?

"What should the flow rate

of the oxygen be?" You know?

"If I have it flowing at

a higher rate, then I feel better,

"but I use up the bottle

more quickly,"

It's very, very cold,

They measure it at below -25,

And that kind of profound,

bone-chilling cold

is almost like an assault, you know?

It's just grim,

The team physiologist had

said, "When you get to high altitude,

"you've got to climb

using your oxygen sets

"at a rate of four litres per minute,

"Anything less than that, you're not

gonna get real benefit from it,"

Our progress

at first was pretty steady,

However, we examined

the oxygen supplies

and found we couldn't go on

our estimated four litres a minute

and have a chance

of getting to the top,

Had to cut it down to three,

A fairly simple

calculation about the oxygen flow rate

is unbelievably difficult up there

because you've got an addled,

oxygen-deprived mind,

After going for some time,

we reached the bottom

of a 400-foot slope

which led up to the South Summit,

and this slope

was a tremendously steep one,

We felt that this snow

could easily avalanche,

There was a bit of a crust,

so you'd think you were

standing on firm ground

and then it would give way -

it would be powdery underneath,

So Hillary is anxious about that,

And also fear of avalanche,

And they have this exchange,

I remember

turning to Tenzing and saying to him,

"Well, what do you think

about it, Tenzing?"

He said he didn't like it at all,

thought it was

decidedly dangerous,

Then I said,

"Well, what do you think?

"Do you think we should go on?"

And he said, "Just as you like,"

We climbed up it with a good deal

of fear and trepidation,

I think this is the first time

I've ever had to make a decision

as to whether something

was justifiable or not,

decided it wasn't justifiable,

but we still went on,

You 're right on the edge

of what's possible

and every step you take is

putting you more into danger,

so the temptation to turn round

and go down is strong,

I'm frightened

a great deal of the time

when I'm in dangerous country,

But I think being afraid

is one of the important factors,

It's a stimulating factor,

Of course, if you just get

petrified with fear,

then it would be hopeless,

The crux of it is

whether or not you're gonna survive,

You know,

none of that is guaranteed,

If anything goes wrong up there,

even a relatively minor accident

can very rapidly slide

into a fatal one,

It was a great relief

when we reached

the South Summit at 9am,

Oxygen was running short,

so we wasted no time

and set off along the ridge,

But we were moving slowly

and time was against us,

Evans and Bourdillon

had gone to the South Summit

and had had reservations

about the route ahead,

Evans had pointed out that there was

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