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00:00:00The End
00:00:30The End
00:01:00June the 2nd, 1953.
00:01:24People in London were excited, and with good reason.
00:01:30A queen had been crowned.
00:01:35On June the 2nd, everything was new and exciting.
00:01:38And to add to the cheers, the newspapers gave an extra of extras.
00:01:54Britain had won a new victory.
00:01:57Men had climbed Mount Everest.
00:01:59A procession in London, another in Central Asia.
00:02:15With garlands around their necks, the climbers come down from the top of the world.
00:02:20At the 11th attempt, after 30 years of defeats, men have achieved the impossible.
00:02:28Here now is Tenzing riding in state.
00:02:35Tenzing, who led the other Sherpas, and together with Hillary, set his feet on the summit.
00:02:40And here now, throned on a balcony, are Hunt, Hillary, and Tenzing, having conquered the peak that we now call Everest.
00:03:02For the origin of that name, you must visit a churchyard in Hull.
00:03:10Once, there was a mountain called Peak 15.
00:03:15Nothing was known about it.
00:03:17But in 1852, the surveyors found it was the highest in the world.
00:03:23And they named it after their severe general, Sir George Everest.
00:03:30A far cry from the Himalayas.
00:03:32The range of the Himalayas is 1,500 miles long, and includes a great number of the world's highest mountains.
00:03:57Many of them still unexplored.
00:04:00Most of them still unclimed.
00:04:03But the highest of these is Everest.
00:04:12When men were first drawn to Everest, it was an unknown quantity.
00:04:17And it lay between two unknown countries.
00:04:20Tibet to the north, Nepal to the south.
00:04:24Nepal in those days was closed to all foreigners.
00:04:26But in 1920, entrance was secured to Tibet.
00:04:33When the first climbers went to Everest, they hardly knew where it was.
00:04:38And what it was, was something entirely beyond them.
00:04:43It was thousands of feet higher than any other peak he had climbed.
00:04:47And not only higher, also vastly more difficult.
00:04:54Nobody in those days knew what really high altitude meant.
00:04:58Could one even live at such heights?
00:05:02Nobody knew.
00:05:03The early expeditions, though they failed, did make the picture much clearer.
00:05:13The problems of Everest emerged.
00:05:17Problems of supply and support.
00:05:20Unbelievably treacherous weather.
00:05:22And worst of all, the problem of altitude itself.
00:05:29The terrifying lack of oxygen.
00:05:36Several of the early climbers attacking the summit from the north got within a thousand feet of it.
00:05:44Mallory and Irving, for instance, who attempted it in 1924.
00:05:48Neither of them came back.
00:05:53Why should a man climb Everest?
00:05:57It was Mallory himself who gave the classic reply.
00:06:01Because it is there.
00:06:05Everest remained a challenge.
00:06:08Aloof.
00:06:10Inviolet.
00:06:12Murderous.
00:06:13Murderous.
00:06:18After World War II, Nepal began to open.
00:06:43Tibet, for her part, was closing.
00:06:44Now, for the first time, Everest could be reached from the south.
00:06:50Eric Shipton, in 1951, led out a reconnaissance expedition.
00:06:55He brought back much new knowledge of the unknown southern approaches.
00:06:59And especially of the strange high valley which is called the Western Coombe.
00:07:06An all-important reconnaissance.
00:07:10The next year, 1952, the Swiss attempted it.
00:07:13The green thread shows where they got to.
00:07:17They got very high.
00:07:19But with suffering.
00:07:20In October, 1952, Colonel John Hunt was called over from Germany to lead a new British expedition.
00:07:30He was summoned by a joint committee of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club.
00:07:36And here he received his briefing.
00:07:38As quickly as possible, he must select a team, about a dozen of the very best climbers.
00:07:42And as quickly as possible, he must equip that team with the very best possible equipment.
00:07:48A project like this means a vast amount of planning and testing.
00:07:55What most needed checking and double-checking was oxygen.
00:08:00For no apparatus hitherto had filled the bill upon Everest.
00:08:04Committees conferred, experts devised, and the climbers themselves played the role of guinea pigs in a decompression chamber at Farnborough,
00:08:15where the air is pumped out and pumped out till breathing becomes very difficult.
00:08:21As difficult as if you were on Everest.
00:08:24There is a gauge showing the equivalent altitude.
00:08:31Here is Pure, a search doctor, using himself as a specimen.
00:08:35His oxygen mask is off.
00:08:38He is exposed to anoxia.
00:08:41The air is getting thinner and thinner.
00:08:44At such heights, when you are lacking oxygen, you may think you are normal.
00:08:49But you are not.
00:08:51No, not normal.
00:08:52You are moving in a dream.
00:08:55A dream that deludes and debilitates.
00:09:00Pew is now, as it were, at the very summit of Everest.
00:09:03He is approaching unconsciousness.
00:09:10Also tested at Farnborough was a new material for tents.
00:09:14Extremely light and 100% windproof.
00:09:16A kind of nylon cotton.
00:09:19To prove it was windproof, it was tried out in a wind tunnel.
00:09:22In a gale of 100 miles an hour.
00:09:25Which is what you meet when you get to the shoulder of Everest, where this expedition is going.
00:09:30The wind never stops up there, howling through the gap between the peaks.
00:09:35A climber climbs with his guts, his brains, his soul, and his feet.
00:09:56For boots, as for all other items, many firms were consulted and many tests carried out.
00:10:02In the coal chamber at Farnborough, a scientist puts the boots through it.
00:10:07A known boot, white, is compared with an unknown, black.
00:10:11Rations.
00:10:15In 1952, British climbers in the Himalayas decided that tins were a nuisance.
00:10:22So for this expedition, something quite new was used.
00:10:25A method known as heat.
00:10:27All the air is removed from your ration, and you are left with a packet, which is both very light and waterproof.
00:10:35And it can stand up to hammering.
00:10:38Such a packet does not look edible, but open it.
00:10:42Let in the air again, and what have you got?
00:10:44You've got sugar.
00:10:48Everything had to be thought of.
00:10:51There will be wide crevasses, therefore let there be ladders, but let them be of aluminium.
00:11:00Yet however good the equipment, and however meticulous the plans,
00:11:06the goddess mother of the world, as the Tibetans called her, can only be conquered by men.
00:11:14Here now is Hunt trying on his boots in England.
00:11:20He is going to climb a long way.
00:11:29This was Hunt's problem.
00:11:32St. Paul's is 365 feet high, one-fourteenth part of a mile.
00:11:39The highest mountain in the British Isles is Ben Nevis.
00:11:44The highest mountain in Europe is Mont Blanc.
00:12:01The highest mountain in the world is five and a half miles high.
00:12:06The highest mountain in the world is five and a half miles high.
00:12:23The expedition reaches Nepal.
00:12:27Crate upon crate.
00:12:29Bale upon bale of equipment.
00:12:32There are no roads into Nepal.
00:12:35It all had to come by cable railway.
00:13:01The capital city of Nepal is Kathmandu.
00:13:08It was here that the expedition assembled.
00:13:10It was here that the march would start.
00:13:13Few Europeans have ever been to this city.
00:13:16It lies cut off from the rest of the world by mountains.
00:13:20There are no roads into Nepal, but there are roads inside it.
00:13:32So if you're in Nepal and you want a jeep or a steamroller,
00:13:35you've just got to carry it in.
00:13:50Kathmandu is a city of temples.
00:14:10The eyes of the gods are always upon you.
00:14:13That is only natural among the Himalayas.
00:14:16For to both Hindus and Buddhists, the Himalayas are sacred.
00:14:21Shiva and Vishnu, Brahma and Buddha,
00:14:25they all live side by side here.
00:14:50The British Embassy.
00:14:55And here the climbers meet the Sherpas,
00:14:57who will carry their loads on the mountain,
00:14:59led by that great Sherpa, Tensi.
00:15:03With Hunt is Major Charles Wiley,
00:15:05who, being an officer of Gurkhas,
00:15:07can speak to the Sherpas in Nepal.
00:15:08This meeting is the first milestone.
00:15:13Another milestone.
00:15:15Tensing now meets Hillary.
00:15:19Then Hunt and Tensing and Wiley go into conference.
00:15:22The march is about to start and there is much to discuss.
00:15:26There are 15 tons to be shifted across a very difficult country.
00:15:30It is for Hunt to explain the points of the route to Everest.
00:15:34We are now at Kathmandu, here.
00:15:40The march to the base of Everest is about 175 miles.
00:15:45All the way from Kathmandu to Everest,
00:15:48there are great mountain ridges cutting across our path.
00:15:52The Kathmandu is only about 4,000 feet above sea level.
00:15:57The foot of Everest is about 18,000.
00:15:59In the camp outside Kathmandu,
00:16:04the expedition gets ready to start.
00:16:07Tensing is wearing his lucky Swiss hat.
00:16:13And here is Hillary with his homemade skiing cap.
00:16:18350 additional porters have been engaged
00:16:20from the people of the valley.
00:16:21The porters load up.
00:16:28The latest in tents or sleeping bags,
00:16:30portable radio equipment,
00:16:32beverage boxes or oxygen cylinders,
00:16:34ladders or ropes or boil suites or pemmican.
00:16:37So off they go on the first long lap.
00:16:41But what they are carrying also
00:16:42is a dream that is turning ripe.
00:16:45The porters load up.
00:17:15There is no need for oxygen yet,
00:17:24but masks must be worn for practice.
00:17:28John Hunt is practicing.
00:17:30So is the rest of his team.
00:17:32All of them bound for a cold, white world.
00:17:37A world that is all up and up.
00:17:40But here it is still up and down,
00:17:44ridge after gorge,
00:17:45gorge after ridge,
00:17:48and hot.
00:17:50Hot work for all.
00:17:53It is still many miles,
00:17:56many days,
00:17:57many buckets of sweat
00:17:59to the snow world.
00:18:00The roof of the world is bare,
00:18:22but the eaves beneath it are lush.
00:18:24Up above may be crags and ice.
00:18:33Here there are seas of rhododendrons.
00:18:36Here there are seas of rhododendrons.
00:18:37THE END
00:19:07All of them bound for a cold, white world.
00:19:37How many days to Everest?
00:19:42This bridge was reached in the morning after a four-hours march.
00:19:46Four hours and four or five thousand feet.
00:19:50A steep drop down through the pine trees.
00:19:53It was just about time for breakfast.
00:20:12A Sherpa cook is frying chapattis.
00:20:15Four hours marching before breakfast makes even campfire cooking taste good.
00:20:23And a pint of tea for George Lowe and his climbing partner, Hillary, makes life seem reasonable once more.
00:20:29Wilfred Noyce, schoolmaster, has work to do.
00:20:38He's also a writer.
00:20:39The march continues, and so does the lush vegetation.
00:20:57But the lushness will not be for long.
00:21:01For ahead and above lies the Sherpa's own country.
00:21:06The stony cradle of a rugged clan.
00:21:09Omani Pemehum, hail the jewel in the lotus.
00:21:25This is the prayer that was written upon those flags.
00:21:29A prayer much used in this country.
00:21:31For at last, this is the country of the Sherpa's.
00:21:49When they come to a sacred wall, they always pass it on the left.
00:21:53For their prayer is carved upon it.
00:21:56Hail the jewel in the lotus.
00:22:01No, the lushness was not for long.
00:22:07These are the foothills of the Himalayas.
00:22:10Foothills that are bigger than many ordinary mountains.
00:22:14A bare, craggy land.
00:22:17Sharply ridged and steeply gorged.
00:22:21A land thrust upwards by subterranean violence.
00:22:25And carved by wind and weather.
00:22:31Every day now, the world grew higher about them.
00:22:42Higher and more elemental.
00:22:46And the water under the bridges grew colder and colder.
00:22:49This one crosses a river called the Dukosi.
00:22:53The name means the Milk River.
00:22:55In the monsoon, its waters are white from the snows of Everest.
00:23:00Like all the bridges in this country, this one looks unsafe.
00:23:04But the Sherpas have seen to that.
00:23:07It carries a prayer flag on it.
00:23:09The End
00:23:24As they neared the village of Namche Bazaar, the climbers received a great welcome.
00:23:54Men, women and children came out to treat them to Chang, a kind of beer brewed from rice
00:24:02or millet and as thick as potato soup.
00:24:05Here every one of the climbers knew that he was among friends.
00:24:10Lo from New Zealand knew that, and Gregory from Blackpool knew it too.
00:24:15Yes, they're all pleased to meet the Sherpas.
00:24:18It's a great day for all, including the children.
00:24:23A good day for everything and everyone, and a carefree day compared with the days ahead.
00:24:42The Sherpas are part traders and part farmers, and they live very high and very hard.
00:24:49But they are a cheerful, hospitable people, fond of singing and dancing and laughing.
00:24:56A mountain people, and semi-nomadic.
00:25:00One family may have four houses.
00:25:03The lowest house, perhaps merely 9,000, for winter.
00:25:08From there you move up to grow your potatoes or barley.
00:25:11Both very hardy crops, like the people who grow them.
00:25:15They have come now to Tangboche, the last outpost.
00:25:24The boxes and bales have arrived.
00:25:27And the porters from Kathmandu have now done their bit and can go.
00:25:31Some of them are feeling the cold, for the height is 14,000.
00:25:41Hunt and Westmacote pay them, and off they go back to the ordinary world below.
00:25:46It is now nearly April.
00:25:49From here to the foot of Everest, the carry will be done by Sherpas.
00:26:01Each member of this expedition has his special job or jobs.
00:26:05Pew, for instance, is here to do medical research.
00:26:09But he also is in charge of messing.
00:26:15And Hunt himself is not only leader and planner.
00:26:18He is also the expedition's treasurer.
00:26:21Gregory is their official photographer and deals with the postal arrangements.
00:26:26Michael Ward is the expedition's doctor.
00:26:29He will also help Pew with his research.
00:26:32Van's special job is wireless, with meteorology thrown in.
00:26:36Each of these climbers has to do more than climb.
00:26:43It's colder here.
00:26:44Lo has acquired a warm hat, such as they wear in Tibet.
00:26:51And once again they put on their oxygen equipment, complete with cylinders this time.
00:26:56Now is the time for practice and testing and acclimatization.
00:27:01In the next few weeks they must become extra efficient and extra and ultra fit.
00:27:07But these goings on seem strange to the natives of Tang Boche.
00:27:13Hunt tests out his portable wireless.
00:27:15On the mountains there will be a series of camps.
00:27:18Those camps must keep in communication with each other.
00:27:22Tom Bordillon is in charge of the oxygen equipment.
00:27:29But a letter from England is, at this moment, more important.
00:27:34The Monastery of Tang Boche is peaceful amongst the mountains.
00:27:52Beyond this are merely the elements to encounter which requires both faith and discipline.
00:28:10Wheels upon wheels upon prayer wheels.
00:28:16Over and over.
00:28:18Omami peme hum.
00:28:21Round and round and round.
00:28:24So this is it.
00:28:43This is what they came to see.
00:28:47This is what they came to climb.
00:28:50Hunt's plan of attack is now developing.
00:28:55The scale of Everest is so huge that you could almost think of it as three mountains.
00:29:02The first mountain starts at the base camp, at a height of 18,000 feet.
00:29:09And goes up into the western coon.
00:29:12Round about here.
00:29:14At 21,200 feet.
00:29:17There, the second mountain begins.
00:29:20It ends on the south call.
00:29:22Here.
00:29:23At 26,000 feet.
00:29:26And then comes the third.
00:29:28Onto the summit.
00:29:30What we had to do was to get up three tons of stores, equipment, and oxygen from base camp up into the coon.
00:29:43From there, we had to get at least 500 pounds up here onto the south call.
00:29:51This is the Kumbo Glacier.
00:29:56The immediate job is to find a site for a base camp.
00:30:00The site is chosen by Hillary, Band, West McCut, and Lowe.
00:30:03Right up the glacier near the icefall.
00:30:06At a height of 18,000 feet.
00:30:09Higher than the highest peak in Europe.
00:30:12The assault on the icefall will be launched from here.
00:30:42This is like building a fortress.
00:30:49A fortress, a home, a depot, a junction, a general office.
00:30:54Foundations of ice and ramparts of nylon cotton.
00:31:1213 tons of a staff is arriving here.
00:31:17Mainly carried up from Tangboche by local porters.
00:31:21The tents are up.
00:31:23The next job is the icefall.
00:31:26We are now established at base camp.
00:31:29And the first problem is to get our supplies up to camp four.
00:31:33High up in the western kum.
00:31:35The main obstacle is the icefall.
00:31:38Some 2,000 feet high.
00:31:41Owing to the climbing difficulties in the icefall,
00:31:44laden porters require three days to reach camp four.
00:31:49So we will have to put up intermediate camps.
00:31:52Approximately here and here.
00:31:57The reconnaissance falls to Hillary, Lowe, and Band.
00:32:10The glare of the ice can burn.
00:32:12This advance party must advance through a frozen but burning forest.
00:32:27A forest as haunted by danger as any jungle in the world.
00:32:32A nightmare of spikes and chasms.
00:32:35A wrinkled and ravaged face.
00:32:38But a face that is always changing.
00:32:41For the ice is always on the move.
00:32:45Cracking, rumbling, roaring.
00:32:48Hello, sir!
00:32:49members haven tipped into diamonds from the men.
00:32:50Chasms.
00:32:53THE END
00:33:23The reconnaissance is underway.
00:33:28Hillary is cutting steps at a place which now has a name.
00:33:32They call it Hillary's Horror.
00:33:35Band is getting out marker flags.
00:33:37As they discover the route, it has to be marked and secured.
00:33:40For three weeks on end, relay on relay of Sherpas must carry their loads up the icefall.
00:33:57So the route has got to be made as safe as possible.
00:34:01Though safe up here remains a comparative word.
00:34:04A route. First find it, then secure it.
00:34:14War is fixing guide ropes.
00:34:16This place also has a name. The climbers called it The Nutcracker.
00:34:29By now it will have vanished.
00:34:31But no one knew then whether it was opening or closing.
00:34:3534 Sherpas will carry their loads through here.
00:35:05Some 40 pounds per man.
00:35:07So Ward goes on fixing ropes.
00:35:40THE END
00:36:10THE END
00:36:40Avalanches above, business continues below.
00:36:56At what of the icefall camp, they have just received their final supplies of oxygen.
00:37:01Within the next few days, the pioneers will have finished their job on the icefall.
00:37:05The route will be open to the western coup.
00:37:09For the others at base camp, it was a time of waiting.
00:37:13Also a time for experiments.
00:37:16Pew seizes this chance for a work capacity test.
00:37:19And George Band is the unfortunate subject.
00:37:21Pew's experiments were not very popular with the rest of the expedition.
00:37:30When someone came into camp after a hard day on the icefall,
00:37:34Pew would harness them into a contraption of glass and rubber
00:37:37and then keep them stepping on and off a box until they were exhausted.
00:37:41Hence the name, work capacity test.
00:37:47You work until you are ready to drop.
00:37:56Meanwhile, more ordinary things take place in base camp.
00:38:00Haircut by the surgeon Evans.
00:38:01But soon he'll be back on the icefall, back and up to a world where haircuts really don't matter.
00:38:12Back to the icefall, the high road.
00:38:15This high road has now been established.
00:38:18It is open to heavy traffic.
00:38:20Load after load.
00:38:21The weapons to conquer Everest.
00:38:27The ferry service moves up with Ward in the lead.
00:38:40And the moment has come for them all to put on their crampons.
00:38:44The spikes that are fixed on the boots to give a grip on the ice.
00:38:47This party includes the special correspondent of the times.
00:38:54This is the first time he has ever been up a mountain.
00:38:59This may be amusing to Ward,
00:39:01but special correspondents don't often have to fix spikes on their boots.
00:39:04Others have been up before them,
00:39:17have dumped their loads,
00:39:18and are now coming down again to base camp.
00:39:21A constant coming and going.
00:39:23From now till the end of May,
00:39:25this road will be much frequented.
00:39:30On the end of the rope is Wiley.
00:39:31When a party is coming down,
00:39:34this is the key position.
00:39:41Relay upon relay.
00:39:43Wiley and his sherpas have come down.
00:39:45And his sherpas will go up with Pondent on the rope.
00:39:48He will tell you how all this struck him.
00:39:51Yes, struck him is the right phrase.
00:39:54It struck me quite considerably.
00:39:57Climbing the icefall is right,
00:39:58how can I put it,
00:39:59like going up the kitchen stairs
00:40:01for three or four miles at a go,
00:40:04three steps at a time,
00:40:05and carrying the baby.
00:40:08The whole thing, you see,
00:40:09is just like a squashed meringue,
00:40:12only, of course, rather bigger.
00:40:13And men are just insects in it,
00:40:15very small insects,
00:40:17lotheem and the crumble.
00:40:19A very dangerous meringue, too,
00:40:21full of crevasses.
00:40:22I climbed up behind Mike Ward,
00:40:28what was fittingly called Mike's Horror.
00:40:30A place where nasty things
00:40:32were always liable to fall on you.
00:40:34and men are just a movie.
00:40:57Oh, thank you.
00:40:58Oh, thank you.
00:41:00Each man with some 40 pounds on his back, and it's quite as hard as it looks.
00:41:30It was a long, long way.
00:41:53Snow had fallen and covered the track, as it did every afternoon,
00:41:57and Mike up in front of me was having to probe it with his ice axe.
00:42:00Just to find out, as a matter of interest, if there was anything underneath.
00:42:24The crevasses are innumerable and horrid.
00:42:26Some of the big ones are sort of blue color inside, and very hungry looking.
00:42:33Rather, as I should think, the belly of a whale must look.
00:42:36As you get higher on the ice fork, the effects of altitude naturally get more noticeable.
00:42:47As you get higher on the ice fork, the effects of altitude naturally get more noticeable.
00:43:04We're getting on for 20,000 feet now, I suppose.
00:43:06Each step becomes more of an effort, and each heart more of a pleasure.
00:43:13You get more breathless and more fuddled.
00:43:15Ward goes on meticulously, relentlessly, up and up towards the camp on the ice.
00:43:45I was looking forward to this, our journey's end, as a true home from home.
00:43:51It turned out to be very like those connections of damp and virelict huts in the corners of disused railway yards.
00:43:58It had its unpretentious comforts, though.
00:44:01There's food in those tents and cheerful company, as you can see.
00:44:04At the top of the ice fall on the brink of the coombe is Camp 3, at 20,500.
00:44:34This camp was established towards the end of April.
00:44:37Not a very comfortable camp.
00:44:40In the mornings it might be fine, but every afternoon there was snow.
00:44:45This is merely a transit camp, merely 2,000 feet from their base, but 9,000 feet from the summit.
00:44:52And the traffic goes on continually.
00:45:01Some stay the night at Camp 3.
00:45:03Some must go back down the ice fall.
00:45:05It is all according to plan.
00:45:10The two New Zealanders, Lowe and Hillary, have just arrived here with batteries.
00:45:15It was a special journey.
00:45:17Now they have to go down again.
00:45:18It's an undertaking to climb the ice fall from base camp and return down there the same day.
00:45:31Beyond Camp 3 is a world of peaks and clouds.
00:45:46In this strange high world lies the western coombe.
00:46:08Its floor is frozen snow, to a depth that no one can guess.
00:46:15Above and around are the walls of the Everest Massif.
00:46:20Walls that surpass the imagination.
00:46:22The New Zealanders, Lowe and Hillary.
00:46:52Camp 4, the advanced base.
00:47:08Up here in the heart of the coombe, the climbers will make their new home.
00:47:13The tents go up supervised by tensing.
00:47:17He first came to Everest in 1935 with Shipton.
00:47:21The Sherpas under his command must make a good job of Camp Fall.
00:47:31For a fortnight or more, 30 human beings will live here.
00:47:36And it is not too easy living so long at this altitude.
00:47:40So tensing will make things ship-shaped.
00:47:42The band comes in with his porters, still 40 pounds per man, and every pound of it essential.
00:47:54Already they are moving slowly.
00:47:57Altitude tells up here and begins to sap a man's energy.
00:48:01If they could use their oxygen, that would make things much easier.
00:48:05But oxygen is too precious.
00:48:07It has to be saved for the unknown heights above them.
00:48:11In Camp Four, Hillary and Evans discuss the next phase.
00:48:16And the next phase is dangerous and difficult.
00:48:20Above them towers the famous, or infamous, Lhotse Face.
00:48:26Hunt is now planning the attack upon it.
00:48:30Camp Four has now been established.
00:48:32And we have successfully carried the three tons of supplies up here.
00:48:37The next stage, and the really crucial one, is up the Lhotse Face, to the South Coast.
00:48:45Once again, this means putting in intermediate camps.
00:48:49Five, six, and seven.
00:48:54In making the route up the Lhotse Face, the pioneers were low and anema.
00:49:14At first, they made good progress.
00:49:19But living there night after night, they worked slower day after day.
00:49:27They did not know it themselves, but the altitude was weakening them.
00:49:32For they were very high above the cool.
00:49:34One, two, one.
00:49:40That's a pretty good.
00:49:41Oh, my God.
00:49:43I know I know.
00:49:46There was no more.
00:49:47There was no longer.
00:49:48There was no more.
00:49:49No, I know.
00:49:51They were just a heavy.
00:49:53I know.
00:49:53I know.
00:49:55I know.
00:49:55I know.
00:49:56I know.
00:49:56There was no more.
00:49:57I know.
00:49:59There was no more.
00:49:59There was no more.
00:50:00There was no more.
00:50:01You know.
00:50:01Progress on the Lodzze face grew slower and slower.
00:50:22From the two camps in the Coombe,
00:50:24Camp 5 is the dots in the left-hand bottom corner of the picture,
00:50:28the others still looked upwards.
00:50:31At last, John Hunt came up to see what was causing the delay.
00:50:42The reasons were only too clear.
00:50:45Newly fallen snow made the going very difficult,
00:50:48but far worse than that was the strain on the lungs.
00:50:52On the Lodzze face without oxygen,
00:51:03no one can move at all fast.
00:51:05To move at all is something.
00:51:07One slow step at a time, and every step an achievement.
00:51:18Do youippo?
00:51:31No.
00:51:35Breathing is now the first and last reality.
00:51:39The time was running out. The original estimate was three or four days. At the end of nine days,
00:52:02it was still not done and there was still over a thousand feet to go. Hunt had sent up reinforcements,
00:52:13Ward and a Sherpa, but they too found the job difficult. The weather continued very bad.
00:52:32They would set out in the morning thinking that they were all right and start the long drag up the
00:52:43steep snow slopes. But within the first hour or so, they would tire and have to turn back.
00:53:02Lo and Angnema had spent nine days on the Lotse face and pioneered a large part of the route,
00:53:24but altitude was crippling them. And in the end, their attack ran down and they descended.
00:53:44The time was running out.
00:53:58We had now established our intermediate camps above camp four, but we had still not broken through to
00:54:06the South Col. The time factor was becoming critical. We had spent ten days on the Lotse face,
00:54:14considerably more than I'd reckoned on. Route or no route made a decision.
00:54:20He sent off Noyce to try and reach the South Col. At the same time, two groups of Sherpas stood by with
00:54:27their loads high on the Lotse face. The Sherpa stood by and Noyce went up and up. He had only one man with him,
00:54:36the Sherpa Analu. But they were both using oxygen. Oxygen was precious, but time was even more so.
00:54:45Their progress was hard to follow. Four thousand feet up through the clouds.
00:55:04And then they were spotted almost on the col itself. And the watchers below knew that the way was open.
00:55:11The great lift was on.
00:55:41Their progress was slow, agonizingly slow.
00:56:09Two steps and they'd bend over their ice axe and pant and pant and pant and pant.
00:56:19Ten steps and they'd flop down in the snow, exhausted. But the Sherpas had guts.
00:56:34The Sherpas were often dragging themselves along on their hands and knees, battling against the
00:56:45effects of height. Some of them were out on their feet, weaving and gasping. But with tremendous heart,
00:56:54they got to the South Col and dropped their loads.
00:57:03Down below, they prepared for possible victory.
00:57:14Now, at last, the time has come for assault. The first assault team is Bordillon and Evans.
00:57:30Bordillon is busy preparing, giving special attention to oxygen.
00:57:34Both he and his father are scientists. And between them, they have developed a new apparatus.
00:57:41At the same time, Hunt sets off for the South Col to lead the support party for the first assault.
00:57:49This party will help with equipment and all last minute preparations. It will also stand by for emergencies.
00:57:59Bordillon and Evans are adding the finishing touches. Evans is a very cool head and knows the Himalayas well.
00:58:06Bordillon is an expert rock climber. A man of exceptional strength. They are both very fine climbers.
00:58:17And they have need to be. They have a tough job ahead of them.
00:58:31Bordillon and Evans had one primary mission. To reach the South Summit and see what lay beyond it.
00:58:54Bordillon and Evans had one primary mission. To reach the South Summit and see what lay beyond it.
00:59:01They would start from Camp 4 and go up to the South Card, spending a night there at Camp 8.
00:59:12They would then go straight to the South Summit. If they reached it and conditions were perfect,
00:59:19they could then go on and attempt the final peak of Everest itself.
00:59:23These operations overlap. Lowe and Gregory are already preparing to support the second assault team.
00:59:32That team will consist of Hillary and Tensing. Tensing, who at this moment is helping them.
00:59:39This support party will move off first. They will all be together on the call. Gregory and Lowe and Hillary and Tensing.
00:59:46Tensing, who possibly alone of the Sherpas, regards the ascent of Everest as not just a job,
00:59:54but an ideal. Everything now is in order. The support party moves off.
01:00:09The South Col is nearly as high as Annapurna, then the highest mountain.
01:00:17The South Col is nearly as high as Annapurna.
01:00:22The South Col is nearly as high as Annapurna.
01:00:26The South Col is nearly as high as Annapurna, then the highest mountain ever climbed.
01:00:43They say the South Col is like the moon, a place that is outside man's experience,
01:00:49a place that has the smell of death about it, a very hard place.
01:00:54Life on the call is dominated by cold, by lack of oxygen, by the wind, above all by the wind.
01:01:24It was on this deadlit spot that they waited for for Dylan and Evans.
01:01:34At about half past one, they'd been seen on the South Summit, but the wind risen again,
01:01:39and they'd been lost in the clouds.
01:01:42About half past three, they were sighted again, coming down.
01:01:45It took them three hours, two little dots on the ridge, before they arrived at the Col.
01:01:54They were coming in, moving very slowly, sitting down every hundred yards or so,
01:02:01and then getting up and trying again.
01:02:05Hillary went out to meet them, and they told him that they had reached the South Summit,
01:02:10five hundred feet from the top.
01:02:31John Hunt came out and congratulated them,
01:02:34and they told him of the difficulties of the final ridge.
01:02:48Then Tensing met them, and wiped the snow and ice from their faces,
01:02:53and he fed them with hot drinks.
01:02:55Their eyelashes were iced up, their eyebrows covered with snow,
01:03:09and the pieces of hair hanging from the front of their helmets were draped with icicles.
01:03:25Moving very slowly over the South Col homewards.
01:03:31It is eleven hours since they set out this morning.
01:03:34The Col is a hard place, but they had been somewhere much harder.
01:03:55They had been higher that day than any climbers before them in the whole history of climbing.
01:04:05Only five hundred feet lower than the summit of Everest itself.
01:04:13Tomorrow it's Hillary and Tensing, provided the weather holds good.
01:04:17May the 27th was a wasted day.
01:04:31A day spent in what?
01:04:33In thinking?
01:04:35The South Col is no place for thought.
01:04:38Most of the time on the Col, a man hardly thinks at all.
01:04:42When he does, he usually thinks what bliss it would be to get down again.
01:04:48Down from this blighted and wind-ravaged chunk of the moon,
01:04:52where everything stops but the wind, and even inside their sleeping bags,
01:04:57men feel eternally cold.
01:04:59The South Col takes away everything.
01:05:14It takes away a man's appetite.
01:05:17It also takes away his sleep, unless he's using oxygen.
01:05:23Worst of all, it takes away his judgment.
01:05:25Hillary and Tensing will need all their judgment tomorrow,
01:05:29when they set out up that ridge, if the storm subsides.
01:05:34The North Col!
01:05:59Next morning, the storm had subsided.
01:06:17They could now start up the ridge.
01:06:20The support party had dwindled.
01:06:21It was meant to include three Sherpas,
01:06:24but two of them were sick that morning.
01:06:26Only young Nima was fit.
01:06:29So they all had to take extra loads.
01:06:32They must now carry 50 pounds each.
01:06:34And on their way, they will pick up yet further loads,
01:06:37dumped by Hunt and Anamgal two days previously.
01:06:41That will make 60 pounds each.
01:06:45It used to be said that at this height,
01:06:4815 pounds was the maximum.
01:06:5015 or 50.
01:06:53This height remained depressing.
01:06:58The End
01:07:04THE END
01:07:34The task before the second assault party, consisting of Hillary, Tenzing, Gregory, Lowe, and Ang Nima,
01:07:45was to get as high as they could on the mountain and there establish a light camp.
01:07:52Here, Tenzing and Hillary would spend the night and attack the summit next day.
01:08:01Gregory, Lowe, and Ang Nima had returned.
01:08:05Exhausted.
01:08:07Ang Nima came on in front.
01:08:09Gregory behind him kept sitting down.
01:08:12Lowe had gone ahead to Camp 8, where he fetched his camera.
01:08:17The wind had been bad, and they had spent a heartbreaking day,
01:08:22and had come down without oxygen from the highest camp ever on a mountain.
01:08:27A very remarkable feat.
01:08:30Gregory took about ten minutes to cover the last fifty yards,
01:08:45moving along a bit, and then crumpling down and resting.
01:08:50Tired, exhausted, but successful.
01:09:03They had carried the supplies that made the assault possible.
01:09:06The sun goes down on Everest.
01:09:14The two who are up in Camp 9 will snatch what sleep they can.
01:09:18And tomorrow, May the 29th.
01:09:21On May the 29th, down in Camp 4 in the Coombe, everyone waits for the outcome.
01:09:32Pew walks up and down restlessly.
01:09:34Hunt looks upwards.
01:09:35But Pew soon has a distraction.
01:09:45The Sherpa, Dan Amgal, has come down from the South Col.
01:09:49He is the Sherpa who went up with Hunt three days ago
01:09:52to dump the first supplies for Camp 9 at well over 27,000.
01:09:57They had come back without oxygen, through driving snow, very slowly.
01:10:08Now, Dan Amgal is sick and suffering slightly from frostbite.
01:10:16Dan Amgal will be up and about again in a day or two.
01:10:20But in the meantime, everyone's thoughts are on what is happening
01:10:25on that knife-like ridge running up to the summit.
01:10:29But the climb today is beyond the reach of human eye,
01:10:33almost beyond imagination.
01:10:43The time goes very slowly.
01:10:47Where had they got to?
01:10:49The answer was they had passed the South Summit
01:10:52and were well on the way towards the peak of Everest itself.
01:11:02Two very small men cutting steps in the roof of the world.
01:11:07On the right, there are tremendous fingers of ice
01:11:11hanging over this great Gengsheng face, about 18,000 feet high.
01:11:16And we have to keep off those, because if you step on a cornice,
01:11:19it gives way under you and precipitates you down the face.
01:11:23We're starting to slow down a bit, getting a little tired,
01:11:27and I think we're almost getting a little desperate
01:11:29in our seeking for the summit.
01:11:33Well, I cut round the back of one ridge
01:11:36and round the back of another ridge,
01:11:38and the summit never seemed to be coming any closer.
01:11:42But finally, I cut round the back of another one
01:11:44and saw that the ridge ahead dropped steeply away.
01:11:48So I looked up, and there was a little rounded cone above us,
01:11:53and I knew it was the summit.
01:11:55All that was needed
01:11:56was a few more blows with the ice axe
01:11:59and Hillary and Tenzing
01:12:02stood on the summit of Everest.
01:12:05Next day in the coombe, they were all waiting anxiously.
01:12:33Then three small dots appeared in the middle of the Lodze face.
01:12:39They were Hillary, Tenzing, and Lowe.
01:12:44Hunt looked up and saw them,
01:12:47but he could not see whether they had lost or won.
01:12:50They came down, roped together, with Lowe in the lead.
01:12:53The Lowe in the lead.
01:13:15The End
01:13:45By now, they all knew it was true.
01:13:50The top of the world has been reached.
01:13:53The End
01:13:58Sherpas and British alike, all had their share in this.
01:14:19The End
01:14:2329,000 feet high.
01:14:35Only two men in the world have reached that height on their feet.
01:14:39One of them born in New Zealand, the other born under Everest.
01:14:46These are the men.
01:15:04The men who paved the way to victory.
01:15:08Up above, 7,000 feet higher, is where these two were yesterday.
01:15:31And why did they climb it?
01:15:36They climbed it because it is there.
01:15:40The End
01:15:45The End
01:15:50The End
01:15:59The End
01:16:09The End
01:16:11The End
01:16:12The End
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