Everest: Getting to the Top of the World, Pt. 2

After WWII ended, efforts were resumed to conquer Everest, but it took many, many teams and missions to reach the summit. Eventually, a bee keeper and a Sherpa achieved that loftiest of goals. But what's happened on Everest since then? You can read the show notes for this episode here.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
And I'm Tracy Wilson and it's this part two of
our Everest podcast. Yes uh. In the first part of
this episode, we talked about how the British came to

(00:22):
identify and name Everest and the subsequent desire to conquer it.
We also covered the earliest climbs up to the point
where World War Two caused a pretty big gap in expeditions.
As the nineteen forties stretched on the British efforts to
some Everest continued to be on hold and maybe hoping
to capitalize on this lack of officially organized expeditions and

(00:46):
make a name for himself, One man, accompanied only by
two sherpas, one of whom was tensing rge illegally entered
Tibet to try to climb Everest in nineteen forty seven.
This was Canadian Earl Den and he was not super
well prepared for this expedition, not even a little. He
didn't have enough training or enough resources. He didn't even

(01:08):
reach the North Call, which is usually the first place
that climbers make camp on the mountain proper before he
had to turn back. Yeah, he had cut rate equipment.
He had only ever trained in um warmer climates to
climb mountains. He just st ill prepared. UH. But also
in seven a successor to the Mount Everest Committee that

(01:30):
had run the previous expeditions leading up to this was created,
and that was called the Himalayan Committee. And this once
again combined the resources of the Alpine Club and the
Royal Geographic Societies. UH. The newly reformed committee would have
to face not only the brutal and still unsummitted mountain,
but also the political problem of China closing Tibet to

(01:52):
outsiders in nineteen fifty so they would no longer have
access from the north UH to try their essense. In
nineteen fifty, an Anglo American reconnaisance mission led by Bill
Tillman an American doctor Charles Houston, explored the approach options
from the Nepal side of the mountain. Tilman ended up

(02:12):
eliminating the Western comb approach as not being a practical option,
although it did end up being used. I think he
just thought at the time it was not going to work. UH.
In n there was another unofficial attempt, and this one
was by a danish Man named Klauds becker Larson, and
becker Larson took sherpa guides with him and he crossed

(02:33):
illegally to the Tibetan side of the mountain to try
to climb via the north side. But this time, as
the group of approached the north coal, the sherpas told
becker Larson that they weren't going to go any further
and the entire climb was aborted. Basically, They're like, we're
not gonna help you after all, and he had that
sense to go, well, then I'm not gonna make it,

(02:54):
So that was setting into that. Was it because of
conditions or some other reason? Uh there When you read
about it, it's and he's written a book about his
um Um adventure, but it sounds like there were multiple factors.
They were uneasy about the political conditions, they weren't super
confident that he was going to be able to do it.
It just kind of all felt very bad to them.

(03:16):
Um One thing that I read that I didn't even
list as a source because I was it seemed not
really that um um credible. But it's worth bringing up
because there are so many rumors around stuff like this
that there was actually a religious aspect to it, that
they felt that there were some bad omens in the mix.
I think that's largely conjecture, but basically they just said

(03:36):
no and that put an end to that. We're done
with this. Also in nineteen fifty one there was another reconmission,
and this one was run entirely by the Himilyan Committee.
Eric Shipton was once again the team lead. Scotsman William
Hutchinson Murray initiated and organized this mission in collaboration with
Michael Phelps Ward, both of whom joined Shipman on the expedition.

(04:00):
Ward had been examining maps and photos from the Royal
Geographical Society archives and he used his research to identify
a route up the mountain from Nepal. So he was
spending his time while they weren't doing things, just pouring
over the information that they already gathered so that he
could figure out a way that they could get up
the mountain this way, since they didn't have the Tibetan

(04:20):
side anymore. Also joining we're physicist and rocket researcher Thomas Duncan,
board Long and to New Zealanders, beekeeper Edmund Hillary and
lawyer Harold Earl Ridford, and in Murray's account of this expedition,
he says, quote, it's worth recording that this is the
first instance where the members of an expedition to Everest
have chosen themselves, chosen their leader, and initiated the expedition.

(04:45):
Is unlikely to happen again. So because these were mounted
and funded by a committee, the committee always picked when
it was going to happen, who was going to go,
who's going to lead it. But this is the first
time that guys got together and so we think we
figured this out, here's what we'd like to do, and
they kind of pitched it to the committee and the
committee said, yes. Marie's group encountered a whole lot of

(05:07):
obstacles along the way. There were leeches that caused septic sores,
they were washed out bridges, a hornet swarm, like everything
you can think of. You know, when you read his
account of the whole, like his mission report, you're just
like you have got to be then hornets. Yeah, it
sounds like an episode of Land of the Lost. I mean,

(05:27):
there are so many crazy things that have been of
those poor guys. In spite of all that they were
able to detect a feasible path up to the south
coll and so, and eventually this whole mission was considered
to be a success. Yeah, they didn't they had never
planned the summit on that one, but they identified this
new route thanks in large part due to this research
that they had been doing. So it uh was resounding success.

(05:51):
So the Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research sponsored its OH
ninety two expedition, which was headed up by Edward with
Dunnant Intensing or Gay was also on this expedition and
while he, along with Raymond Lambert, was able to set
a new record in climbing altitude, though they struggled to
do so. They were crawling on all fours before they

(06:13):
finally reached their limit. Like these guys were really trying
to keep going and they just couldn't do it. There
was a second Swiss expedition in the fall of nineteen
fifty two, but the death of one of the sharp
is on the mission, who was killed by falling ice,
combined with bad weather to put an end to it
before they could have any real push for the summit.
And there's also a really interesting rumor that there was

(06:38):
a Russian attempt on the Tibetan side in although both
Russia denied it had ever happened and China had never
acknowledged it, there was allegedly a camp found in nineteen
sixty that supported this rumor, though in article for the
Alpine journal Mountaineer You of Getting Given, writer describes the

(07:00):
search he attempted into the rumored expedition. He made inquiries
with mountaineering organizations, personal contacts, government offices, sports associations, and
trade unions. And he found no evidence that any of
the alleged members of the Mystery Ascent party ever existed. Yeah,
it seemed like they were completely fabricated names and people.

(07:20):
So uh still a rumor, not supported in any way
that we can find. Uh. And in nineteen fifty three,
another expedition was led by Henry Cecil John Hunt, Lord
Hunt of landfair Waterdine, although this impressive moniker is not
the one that is most commonly associated with this trip.
Also climbing were Robert Charles Evans deputy leader, George Christopher

(07:43):
Band who was the youngest team member at age twenty four,
Tom Boyon as the oxygen officer, Alfred Gregory in charge
of photography, Edmund Hillary, whilst George Lowe Cuthbert Wilfred, Frank Noyce,
Mike Ward as expedition physician, Michael Horatio Westmacott as ice
Fall trailmaker, and organizing secretary Charles Jeffrey Wiley, who was

(08:07):
also in charge of the service sherp attending Orge was
also on the ascent team, and it was his seventh
trip up to the mountain, and when this group arrived
at Temboche Monastery on the early part of their journey,
tending Orge's mother actually greeted them. She wanted to make
sure her son was okay and give her blessing for
him to climb, which she did. After making their way

(08:30):
to the South Call over the course of many weeks,
the first summit push was made by Evans and boardingon on.
The pair got to the South Summit in the early afternoon,
but only made it to twenty eight thousand seven ft
which is eight thousand, seven hundred seventy before depleted oxygen
supplies and inhospitable winds forced them to turn back, and

(08:51):
three days later, on May, Edmond, Hillary and tensing Orge
headed up from a starting point of Camp nine at
thousand feet or eight thousand fives, which had been set
up by Hunt in a team of sherpas for the pair,
while Evans and Boordeon were making their bid for the top,
so they were kind of prepping for the second go
at the top even as the first one was happening,

(09:13):
because he just wanted to be ready. They left camp
at six thirty am and had reached the south summit
by nine am, and at one point ten Signora had
seemed to be in distress, but Hillary found that the
line of his Oxiden tank had been blocked with ice,
and they were able to fix that situation and keep moving.
The next two and a half hours were carefully spent

(09:34):
uh picking their way up a forty ft or twelve
point two nearly vertical wall of rock and ice, which
is now known as the Hillary Step, and then at
last they had reached the elusive summit of Mount Everest,
the highest point on Earth in that moment, a dream
that was more than three decades in the making for
the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society, and a

(09:57):
century from the time that British surveyor As had first
seen the mountain was finally realized. The pair took photos.
They looked around briefly for any sign of the lost team.
Mallory and Irvine uh Norgay buried Buddhist offerings in the snow,
and Hillary buried a crucifix. They ate a mint cake,
so sort of like the power bar of the past.

(10:18):
I guess uh. They only spent about fifteen minutes up
there at the summit. The photos taken were of the
view from the top, largely as proof, and Tensing waving
his ice pick with flags of the United Nations, Great Britain,
India and Nepaul attached to it. No photos were taken
of Hillary. Yeah, Tensing Orgie didn't know how to work
the camera, although he said in subsequent uh interviews and

(10:42):
I think in a book that he had offered to
try and Hillary and said no, no, it's fine. So
there are no pictures of Edmond Hillary at the top,
the pair had to carefully make their way back down.
Their steps had already been erased by wind, and on
the way back down from that loftiest of heights, they
were met by George Lowe from the expedition, who has
made his way up to meet them. And this is

(11:03):
when Hillary famously said to him, well, George, we've knocked
that bastard off I love how many pithy quotes around
everything we have to think, like, as an adventurer, you're
just at the ready with sound bites. Yeah, Holly, would
you like to take a second talk about a word
from our sponsor? So going back to Everest post Summits

(11:24):
writing about the importance of that first summit for Smithsonian
Magazine in two thousand three, A journalist who had been
part of that historic expedition wrote, fifty years on, it's
hard to imagine what a golden moment that was that
the young British Queen, at the very start of her reign,
should be presented with such a gift. A British expedition
reaching the top of the world at last seemed then

(11:45):
almost magical, and a generous world loved it. The news
ran around the globe like a testament of the light,
and was welcomed as a coronation gift to all mankind.
It was nothing like so momentous and achievement as that
giant moonstep the Americans were presently going to take. But
it was altogether simple, a political, untechnological and exploit still

(12:05):
on a human scale. And Holly good, I don't know
if I'd go so far to say, Holy good, I
don't either, but uh, there's some waxing rhapsodic about that's
very rhapsodic. And there are also a number of issues
that go along with this entire thing that go everywhere
from colonialism to the fact that the whole place is

(12:27):
covered in garbage. Now, yeah, which we'll talk about into
just a minute. So neither Edmund Hillary, nor Tenzig nor
climbed Everest again. Hillary was given a knighthood and Tensing
received Britain's George Medal in recognition of his courage. They
were also decorated in many other ways, and certainly I
know Edmund Hillary um went on to you know, have

(12:48):
endorsement deals, etcetera. But one of his ongoing missions and
his passions in his life after the summit was the
sharp of people and their well being. The Sir Edmund
Hillary Foundation was formed the nineteen seventies and since its foundation,
it's funded and supported the development of medical care center, schools,
and conservation initiatives in Nepal. He went back all the time,

(13:10):
he brought his whole family. Uh wasn't so interested in
going up the mountain again, but he really wanted to
try to do what he could to take care of
the people around it. Although Hillary died in two thousand
eight at the age of eighty eight, this foundation and
its work go on. Tensing, for his part, continued to
escort explorers and to train climbers, and he eventually founded

(13:31):
an adventure tour company, which was taken over by his
son after Tensing died at the age of seventy two.
There have been more than three thousand, five hundred people
at the peak of Everest since that first summit, and
more than two hundred people have died trying, and most
of those bodies remain on the mountain. For a lot

(13:51):
of reasons. A litter problem has also, as we said,
developed on this once pristine landscape as used supplies are
dropped to lighten the loads of climbers. More than thirteen
tons of garbage have been collected by the Eco Everest
Expedition Group since two thousand eight. As well as human
waste and a handful of bodies. There's an estimated ten

(14:14):
tons of trash left on the mountain. Yeah, this is
where I still have a fundamental problem with it. Yeah. Well,
it's hard to imagine why people would just leave their
their trash there until you read the first person accounts
of how grueling it is to make it to the top. Really,
people will be taking a step and then having to
take multiple breaths before they can take another step because

(14:37):
they're so exhausted. Yeah, so lightning the load becomes important. Yeah,
Lightning the load becomes important. And and picking all of
that stuff up to try to take it back down
in a lot of cases becomes a life threatening attempt.
Um Like, you can either leave that stuff there or
you can make it down alive. And that does not

(14:57):
seem like a very good choice, which is still part
of why I struggle with it, because it kind of
in deciding that you're going to do this thing, you're
kind of putting your desire over the mountain. I mean,
this was once a holy place and now there's well,
and it's after a huge cleanup effort, there are still

(15:19):
ten tons of garbage there. Well, and it's it's still
a holy place. It's just a holy place that has
trash all over right now. Yeah, it's the holy place
covered in garbage. Yes, And it's also extremely expensive to
climb Everest. This was one that I kind of stumbled
across in my research, and I totally got sticker shock.
I mean I I in my head, of course, I

(15:40):
was like, yeah, that's gotta be a huge undertating minimum thirty. Uh. Also,
I can go up into the six figures very easily. Yeah.
That's also one of the reasons that, Uh, when when
you see stories about like storms that have killed people
that were attempting to get to the summit, a lot
of times there's this thread of this was the only
time this person and was ever going to be able

(16:01):
to try it because of the amount of money that's involved,
in the amount of training, and that turning back would
have meant that all of that I was gonna go
to waste. Yeah, it's um, it's for most people to
do it. I would say, it's so once in a
lifetime thing. There are repeaters, but not very many of them. Uh.
And that cost is determined by a number of things,

(16:22):
the permits, the services retained, the ascent path that you use,
your travel, your training, what guides you hire, how savvy
you are. I was watching one modern documentary about it,
and uh, one of the pieces of advice they were
giving to people was, if you have anyone in your
party who is a native speaker, already before you start
hiring guides and buying equipment, let them do all the bargaining,

(16:47):
because they will completely jack up the prices for anyone
that's not from the area. Um, it's like wedding planning.
That's a whole that gonna be a whole other episode.
I feel way is about those things. Yeah. So in
spite of all the costs and all the danger and
all the garbage, the Summit of Everest has become kind

(17:08):
of a bucket list item for a lot of modern mountaineers.
And now there are ladders and guide ropes in place,
and some conveniences that early explorers never had but made possible. Occasionally.
Now more than two hundred people will reach the summit
in a single day, yeah, which is just such a
huge number. And that's certainly not an everyday thing. This

(17:30):
is a seasonal trip. You can't do it anytime. The
season to get to the top is extremely limited. Like
that that that two hundred person day might be the
only day that anybody gets to the summit that year. Yeah,
which is why you can have like, oh, thirty people
have done it, But wait, if two people a day
are doing it, that's how that math works. Out is
it's a very narrow window where two hundred people in

(17:51):
a day could get up there. Um, it's it's very
interesting to read about modern accounts of of what it
means to be bull and why they're doing it. I
think the trying to remember which piece I read. One
woman described the people in her particular group as largely,
not entirely, but largely separating into two types. One was like,

(18:15):
really kind of wealthy, twenty something almost trust fund babies
that kind of were just kind of adrenaline junkies. And
then older men that were working through some stuff. And
she was like, I was kind of an outlier because
I was like a thirty year old woman and I
certainly had my own stuff going on. But those were
for the most parts, she again qualified not everyone, but

(18:36):
those were the primary two groups. Yeah. I kind of
wonder if if, like those first explorers, most of them
have died now, because that was a long time. Yeah,
I kind of wonder if some of these first explorers,
if they were alive today, would be kind of like, Yeah,
everyone used to be a challenge before they nurved it. Yeah,
you wanna have some listener mail, I do. That sounds

(18:59):
spectacular this one goes back. We've had a few listener
meals about it, and I was debate over whether we
shoultreat another, but I love them so much. It's another
haunted mansion one uh And it is from our listener Joe,
and he says, my family went to Disney Room when
I was six, and I decided I was brave enough
to go in the haunted house. My older sister and
brother took me while our parents went to the Hall
of Presidents. My bravado quickly left me after the stretching room.

(19:22):
My sister calmly held me and comforted me, assuring me
I would be fine. She got me through the ride
while my brother called me a baby and a scarity cat.
We were almost through when the Doom Buggies came to
a halt in the cemetery part of the ride, right
next to that skeleton head that kept popping out from
behind the tombstone screaming. After a few minutes stuck and
me freaking out, the ride operators told us we would

(19:43):
have to abandon our buggy and walk out of the ride.
My patient sister carried a crying me through the graveyard,
which still had all the happy haunts moving about and
out to safety, and my brother still teases me about
it to this day. Oh no, why hope in a
good natured way. I mean, well, I think we meant.
And when we were doing the episode, one of my
favorite things in the Haunt ad Mansion is that moment

(20:04):
at the at the end of the stretching room at
the very beginning, where all of these small children completely
just lose it. But then that makes me sad and
their patients sister is having to carry them out. This
is a lot about his sister though, it's very sweet. Yes,
we have also had a couple more cast members write

(20:25):
us and confirm the ashes being scattered. Yes, uh, yeah,
we have enough confirmation now, I think, yes, that we
can say with certainty, well we're throwing ashes around the
Haunt image. Yeah. And I had one of those moments where,
you know, Facebook likes to tell you when some friend
of yours is talking about something and it's not actually

(20:47):
pertinent you. It was like some friend that had put
up one of those articles that was about crazy things
that happened in Disneyland, and somebody had was just going
on about how they scattered part of their father's ashes
there and how important it was to them that was
you know, they didn't really care because it was so
important to them to know that part of their father

(21:08):
was there. And I was like, no, your father got vacuum.
And I had to very forcibly restrain myself from getting
involved in that of conversation because it was not about me. Yeah. Yeah,
it's tricky. I mean, I completely man, nobody understands as
much as me that you would want to be the
thousandth the thousandth ghosts living there like that seems pretty

(21:30):
dreamy to me, but you know, really you will go
to a vacuum. Yeah. I'm also just sort of in
favor of not doing things that inconvenience all the other
people on the rides, it has to be shut down
for the has Matt team to come in. Yeah. Some
people who were really annoyed because they were like, well,
cremated remains are are not even a hazard because they're

(21:51):
basically ash, And I was like, that's that's not the point.
That's still they're still having to call in a cleanup
crew and shut down the ride. Yeah. Yeah, because if
you think about it, I mean, if they didn't do that,
I'll just circle it back to today's episode. It would
be like everything there, It would be just piles of
ash everywhere. It really would and nobody wants that. I mean,
it would take on a whole different kind of Yes,

(22:13):
here we're going through the cremins of lots of people
who love the mansion. You don't want that. Nobody wants that.
If you would like to write us talk about where
you want to put your cremins or whatever else you
can think of, or if you were scared by a
fabulous ride as a kids, you can do that at
History Podcast at Discovery dot com. You can also connect
with us on Facebook dot com slash missed in History

(22:36):
and on Twitter at missed in History. We're also on
missed in History dot tumbler dot com and at pinterest
dot com slash missed in History. You would like to
do some more research about what we talked about today,
you can go to our website and type in Everest.
We recommended that last time for the article about dead
bodies on the mountain, but today we'll go to how
climbing Mount Everest works, which talks a little bit about

(22:57):
the history and also about how modern next visions do
it and sort of what it takes to to get
up the mountain. If that's something you want to do,
If you want to research that, or almost anything else
you can think of, you can do that at our website,
which is how stuff Works dot com for more on
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(23:18):
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