memorable moments

IMPORTANT, HUMOROUS MOMENTS AND STRIKING IMAGERY

Moment of levity came when one cook put tuna in hot water to boil it

(having never seen canned food) and when he opened the can the contents exploded – word spread through the camp that all of the brit stores were explosive, a rumor Howard-Bury didn’t quell as it discouraged pilfering from the supplies.

Saw Mongolian pilgrim – 11 months out of Lhasa moving 650 miles toward Kathmandu – one body length at a time in ritual prostration.  Stand, arms high as he could reach, then bringing hands to forehead, throat chest he would ben forward to the ground. Touching earth on all fours with hands flat and squarely on his knees. He placed forehead on ground making 5 points of contact. Thus purifying the 5 poisons of hatred, desire, ignorance, pride and jealousy. Then stands again he drew his hands again in prayer to his chest – indicating his willingness as an aspiring bodhisattva to take on the suffering of all sentient beings.  With each silent prostration he moved closer to his goal w was not a place but a state of mind – path of salvation and liberation was ultimate quest of the pilgrim.

1922:

Morshead and Wakefield celebrated their escape from civilization by having their heads shaved at Pedong by Morshead’s servant, Munir Khan – a favorite of the men. A few days later Norton and Longstaff were similarly scalped as was Mallory who wrote to Ruth; “I look rather like a hun w my close crop and unshaven chin”

Gen Bruce mad “heroic exertions to get rid of his tummy” refusing his mount and stormed ahead on foot climbing as much as 5500ft in a day.

Morris commented on Mallory “leaving trails of untidiness wherever he went”. After a few days the other men decided to take turns cleaning up Mallory’s scattered gear to ensure nothing essential get left behind of pinched by the scores of young Tibetans who crowded around their every camp.

Privacy was never an option. The men were constantly on display “like animals in an exhibition” (Morris) “the extraverts squatted down behind the nearest rocks and paid no heed to the audience, while the others would saunter on until their pursuers lost interest.

After competition they all joked around – in good form and spirits

Finch tried to ride a yak earning him the name buffalo bill.

Morris who wore flamboyant native dress to dinner and “after the manner of a Hindu had shaved all but a lock of his hair soon answered to the name Babu Chatterjee. Mallory became appropriately, peter pan. Gen Bruce remained general. As Finch said “we could not have a better and more able leader than him…his immense power over the coolies is worth the presence of a dozen good men”

Gen Bruce met Dzatrul Rinpoche the incarnation of padma sambhava, guru rinpoche – embodiment of a god, one “depicted w nine heads”

According to Finch he was “an impressive bit of humbug w a huge face”.

When Rinpoche asked Bruce why they wanted to suffer so much to stand on the loftiest peak. Bruce rose to the occasion explaining that the summit was the highest point on earth, its location the closest to heaven, a worthy goal for any man. Then to save himself from having to drink butter tea he told Draztrul Rinpoche he had “sworn never to touch butter until we arrived at the summit of Everest.”

Getting provisions to camp 4: Strutt gasping for air finally crested the height of the north col he cursed Noel “I wish that cinema were here” he exclaimed in a rare spark of humor. “If I look anything like what I feel, I ought to be immortalized for the British public”

Mallory looked at Strutt’s “grease smeared, yellow ashen face” noted that they all looked like hell, wind-whipped and blackened by the sun. “And what do we do it for anyway!”

Finch and Bruce jr made high altitude open air tinkerer’s workshop. W temps well below zero the steel tools were too cold to handle. He made new breathing devices because valves on previous ones froze.

Tested the O2 – Finch said “the effect of the O2 was remarkable…”though the apparatus weighed some thirty pounds “we two went ahead like a house on fire.”

Finch and Bruce jr performed brilliantly w the O2 and strutt and Wakefield sent them on a rescue mission to find Mallory’s team. They found them stumbling down the mountain and Finch and Bruce continued to restock camp 4 – they arrived back at camp 3 feeling great.

The Tibetans finally understood why they had been asked to carry steel cylinders all the way from Darjeeling. It was the “English air” that made the British so powerful.

Finch said: “all possible doubts as to the great advantages of oxygen were now at an end.”

The climbers endured another night – on starvation rations. Everest was an after thought – first goal was to survive the night. Finch: they were all “ravenously hungry, even, I think, to the point of cannibalism”. The one thing they did have was tobacco. Finch loved to smoke and seriously believed it had a “most beneficial effect on respiration at high altitudes.”. “Something in the smoke took the place of carbon dioxide in which the blood is deficient and acted as a nerve stimulant”. They sat in a tent thick w smoke after 3 hours of straight smoking. They felt awful. Finch suggested they take a shot of gas. After they did they suddenly felt revived and even warm. So Finch rigged the tanks so they could have a low flow through the night. They all slept well and kept warm. Finch said that the oxygen alone saved their lives.

Then on the northeast ridge Bruce jr yelled not getting O2 ai Finch raced down and grabbed Bruce jr just in time. Before he was about to fall backwards off the mountain. Finch dragged him forward saving his life and inserted his own breathing tube into Bruce’s mouth. At elevation where most can’t think. Finch worked to solve the problem while figuring a way to let Bruce and Finch breathe from his own cylinder while he attached a new glass tube to Bruce jrs cylinder.  (At least Finch discovered that a sudden stop of O2 wouldn’t kill a man on the mountain as suspected.)

Wakefield and Crawford thought they would attempt summit too – despite their age but then Wakefield overdosed Crawford on morphine in an attempt to get a good night’s sleep before the attack.   His medical error might have saved their lives. Neither was fit enough for that climb. (And he noted that medicine doses might be reduced at that altitude)