Among Secret Beauties: A Memoir of Mountaineering in New Zealand and Himalayas

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Introduction

Ed Hillary remarked to me when we were walking up the Barun Valley in the Himalayas in 1954 that ‘being on this expedition will change your life’. Ed knew what he was talking about: no mountaineer had experienced change more than he had during the previous nine months since he climbed Everest. Circumstances threw us together for most of the expedition, and I got to know that he wasn’t a man to squander words. Events that took place on our expedition took a high toll on Hillary. Yet, as we played out our drama among crevasses and high mountains – a story of accident, rescue, collapse, tension, unselfish dedication, and real accomplishment – even Hillary could not have predicted the full import of his words.

The title of the book When Men and Mountains Meet by W.H. Tilman comes from William Blake’s two lines ‘Great things are done when men and mountains meet: this is not done by jostling in the street.’ Tilman was one of my heroes, and it was a milestone in my life when, a year after I added his book Nepal Himalaya to my shelf, I found myself heading into those untrodden ranges that he had just begun to glimpse, and which he was holding up before us as an alluring new mountain playground.

Mount Everest, the long unattainable summit, was the subject of many of the other books on my shelf. It had been climbed by Hillary and Tenzing Norgay only a few weeks before it was publicly announced that Hillary was to lead us, a group of mainly New Zealand climbers, into unclimbed territory back near Everest the following year.

This was a major event in New Zealand climbing, the first expedition organised and sponsored by the New Zealand Alpine Club and, following two small but most effective privately organised expeditions, a bold undertaking involving the largest body of New Zealand climbers to set foot on the Himalayas up to that time.

The Southern Alps continues to put up the worthiest of challenges, both old and new, to climbers of all types. These are the mountains that made me, and I’m grateful to my friends in New Zealand, in those years, who trusted me as a climbing companion. Ultimately it was the mountains themselves, the unforgiving mountains, that were the measure of our fitness to be among them. And test us they did, to the limit, not only in the Himalayas.

When I took my first thrilling but cautious steps into the Southern Alps many of the early climbers were still alive. Few of them then had written about their exploits but I knew about them, and I had the memorable experience of coming face to face with a number of these pioneers at a jubilee celebration in 1951. I like to think that some of my own adventures too, in the years that have followed, can be described as pioneering.

In this memoir I try to answer questions about the place of mountaineering in my life, and about the ugly face that some climbing today presents to the world.

The mountains invite us all to come under their spell, to be changed, even if only from the valley floor. I’ll be happy if my story encourages readers to go out and explore that invitation.

1. Revelation and Survival

Hillary’s comment was so prophetic that I find the events of 1954 push all other memories out of the way and insist on being told first. I begin among the high reaches of the Barun Glacier and peaks, an area between Everest and the fifth-highest peak, Mount Makalu.

Ed Hillary, Jim McFarlane and I set off from base camp on 24 April, to explore, climb, acclimatise, and to gather information about future climbing opportunities.¹ In Hillary’s words, ‘We plan to go up the Barun tomorrow and have a look at the approaches to Lhotse 2 and Makalu 2’.² Some of our Sherpas having gone back to the pass into the Barun to bring up more supplies, we had five to accompany us, all of us carrying reasonably heavy loads. My moderate 18-kilogram pack at 17,000 ft (5200 m) had me gulping for air for the first time.

A few hours picking our way among the sharp-split granite moraine might have been tedious in other circumstances, but when we came around a corner, what we saw – pure white, directly ahead of us – was Mount Everest. Though only 19 kilometres away, it looked remote, not only because the two peaks of Lhotse dominated the foreground, but for me, because the real Everest was slow to yield to the mystical Everest I had carried with me ever since I first read the climbing books in the Dunedin Athenaeum library as a boy.

Lhotse (centre) and Everest (behind) from the upper Barun. Photo: Brian Wilkins

Sentimental language was usually avoided among a group of climbers at work, but if it had been appropriate, I would have asked Hillary what his feelings were almost a year since 29 May 1953, when for the first time since that day he was back looking upon the scene of his climb.

We camped on the moraine. More delights came our way when our first mail runner caught up with us. My family and friends did me proud. Hillary opened a letter from his wife, telling him she was pregnant. Another mountaineer? No idle quip.

As we carried on up the Barun I wondered, would I be one of those who never acclimatise properly? Hillary, Lowe and Evans had been through it all before; proven acclimatisers. Many others who come to these mountains never acclimatise, or acclimatise so slowly during weeks or months as to be unable to do much climbing at all. One can do nothing about it except wait for the throw of the biochemical dice. How were the others doing? I’d been going better than McFarlane on the first day, but on the next, when we went to 17,800 ft (5400 m), alongside the glacier, the roles reversed and I was sitting down for a spell at every third boulder, it seemed. My diary says:

Comparing oneself with Hillary is no help at all. In spite of the fact that he is far from well, he has been in the lead all the time without any apparent distress. Now he is sitting by himself high up on a terrace above the glacier. With the memories that are there for him on the skyline, and the news from home, I don’t think he is taking much notice of our stumblings as he sits in a clear line of sight to the beacon which had set for him his life’s course.

Farther up the Barun next day, we camped above the glacier. In two days we had moved around Makalu from the south to the west. By climbing the peak immediately above us we could look into the huge glaciated area, almost five kilometres wide, making up the western slopes of Makalu.

Our unclimbed 20,244 ft (6170 m) peak was boulders to begin with, then on smooth rock we roped up on a ridge leading to powder snow over ice and described by Hillary as ‘steep and exposed’.³ We cut steps; four hours to the top. If I hadn’t been concerned with filling my lungs, and with trying to comprehend what lay all around us, I might have started comparing the moment with the personal Everests of my New Zealand apprenticeship. The climb, our first Himalayan peak, was perfect in height and difficulty for testing McFarlane and me for acclimatisation. For Hillary, his first Himalayan climb since Everest, it was a test of another sort: of his fitness.

The great basin below ends on the formidable face of Makalu. From the summit we were the first to see that below us lay a feasible route to Makalu Col, the key to the mountain. The Californian party (about which we will hear more in this story) that was now climbing on the other side of Makalu had earlier rejected this route, but they had not gone high enough to be able to see down into the glacier where it drives hard in under a subsidiary range. Although Hillary, from Everest, saw mouth-watering views of Makalu from a similar direction, it was this range that hid the key part of the route from him until now. It is also the route to Kangchungtse (then called Makalu II), which was one of our stated objectives, and to Chomo Lonzo. Both, at more than 25,000 ft (7600 m), were worthwhile prizes.

On our summit we could turn and see Everest, now only 14 kilometres away, and viewed from an angle rarely seen up till then. Nearer at hand, inviting the imprint of our own boots in the coming days, were Baruntse, Pethangtse and other fine unclimbed peaks.

I was happy with my progress, though I found step-cutting hard work. Hillary, writing about this climb, said, ‘I expect that, despite my ill-health I had a good deal more in reserve on this peak.’⁴ One assumes that the ‘more’ refers to a comparison with McFarlane and me, because he went on to say, ‘Brian, I thought, went reasonably well, and Jim made heavy weather of it, but with considerable determination.’ I remember Hillary asking me to slow down. About the next day, farther up the Barun, at nearly 19,000 ft (5790 m), Hillary wrote, ‘Jim went slowly, with determination, while Brian went quite strongly.’

Kangchungtse (top left) and (above centre) Makalu Col, from the peak climbed by Hillary, McFarlane and Wilkins, 28 April 1954. Later, approaching up the Chago Glacier (below), we climbed on the face of Makalu (top right) towards the col. Photo: Brian Wilkins

Terraces above the glacier took us into the six kilometre-wide amphitheatre of mountains and ice at the head of the Barun. We camped on a small mossy terrace near a little stream of meltwater.

The peak above us, at 20,145 ft (6144 m), is better described as a huge elongated stack of large unattached rocks, the whole pile stamped Withdrawn from Circulation by the geological librarian. But it was superbly placed, allowing us to add to our stock of original ‘Himalayan-looking’. McFarlane was going better than previously; today better than me. He had been vomiting after meals, but was getting stronger now. Hillary, still eating very little, was not well. In my diary I wrote, ‘How does he keep going?’ and continued: Unfortunately, because of accident and illness, I was the only one of the three of us who had the privilege of making those climbs.

On top we are the first occupiers of a seat in the circle of the world’s high mountains. Hillary, after the frustrating time with low cloud blocking the view when he came through the fringes of this country with Shipton, Lowe and Evans in 1951, is relishing the scene. For the first time he sees it all clearly and we make plans to come back and climb Pethangtse and other unclimbed peaks later in the expedition.

Chomo Lonzo above the Kangshung Glacier. From the col the author and McFarlane reached the head of the Barun. Two hours later we fell into the crevasse. I’m wearing the red sunhat I was to leave on the rocks to guide rescuers. Photo: Brian Wilkins

About 2.5 kilometres beyond our peak, across the Barun névé, was a col which we knew must be on the border between Nepal and Tibet. The col, 20,588 ft (6279 m) had never been visited from either side, although the early expeditions in the 1920s and 1930s, attempting Everest from Tibet, had reached another col not far away. The chance of entering Tibet, however briefly, was not to be missed, and I readily accepted McFarlane’s suggestion that we should go there.⁵ We left Hillary at 10.30 am when he decided to go back, from the top of our peak, to our camp, to prepare for our return towards base that afternoon.

Two hours later, after kicking steps across the crusty snow, McFarlane and I were on the col and looking down into the Kangshung Valley, a brown and bare place, darkened under cloud, a place from the history books, a pathway explored by the very earliest Everest expeditions. Beyond were numbers of snow-capped peaks dissolving into haze. For a better look we put on crampons to go about 30 metres down the Tibetan side. The three huge rock buttresses of Chomo Lonzo were now in view, and also to our right was an excellent view of the western approaches to Makalu and Kangchungtse.

At 1 pm we headed back down across the snowfield, and in a direction that would take us past, rather than over, the peak we had traversed earlier.⁶ As we descended, the snowfield narrowed into a glacier: an ice field partially separated from a larger mass of about four square miles of ice, and scarcely moving. Big, lethargic, it had long since given up trying to maintain a connection with the main Barun Glacier, which flowed past about a mile away from the end of it.

To McFarlane and me the level going made an attractive alternative to the slopes of sharp loose granite boulders running along the foot of the peak to our right. It looked no different from the ice we traversed in the Southern Alps. The Tasman Glacier would be a good example, where tourists and school parties had been guided for a century. We could see breaks in the ice but we had skirted around the likes of these for years.

We were roped together: McFarlane behind me, holding some coils. Halfway down the glacier we turned left to avoid crevasses that came from the right and petered out into a continuous unbroken flat surface. To describe what happened in the next instant, I can draw on two sources: Jim’s clear memory, and my own limited recall of the briefest of moments when I felt I was going down.

The crevasse fall site, taken from peak 6144 m. Coming down the glacier from left to right we fell when attempting to pass the upper edge of the broken area. Photo: Brian Wilkins

McFarlane was enjoying himself that day. For the first time he felt that the thin air in his lungs was no longer a problem. I was wearing a red cloth sunhat with sides that hung down over my ears. Inspired by the sunhat that I saw Hillary wearing in films taken on Everest, I had bought some floral material at an Indian bazaar and had sewn it together during the march in. It was the red hat, more than me, that McFarlane said he saw disappearing silently and rapidly down into the ice in front of him.

As one of New Zealand’s leading climbers, he knew exactly what to do. Lean back, brace yourself for the pull, ram your ice axe into the surface. But the ice was too hard and when he was pulled off balance he could no longer get a grip with his crampons. He resisted for all he was worth, and this, along with his weight and the friction of the rope over the edge of the ice, slowed the early part of my fall. At the same time the debris produced when I broke through was falling free to reach the bottom of the crevasse, 60 ft (18.3 m) down, a moment before I did. Dragged in after me, he fell free the whole way.

I was knocked unconscious; for how long I don’t know. When I came around I was in a sitting position, immersed up to my knees in the fallen debris, still holding my ice axe. I know now that this loose material helped save our lives. I looked behind me and saw Jim, a metre or so away, also sitting, perhaps more lying, with his back to me, groaning: ‘What a helluva mountaineer I am, I’m sorry Brian.’ He was in a worse state than I was, yet he was apologising to me: words to remind me of Jim’s unselfishness.

We were on a pile of debris large enough to leave us raised somewhat above the bottom of the crevasse, and at our side it rose to a height of about two metres above us. Between us we had brought down a great amount of material, a pile the height of the debris near us before we slammed into it. I had walked onto a flat firm-looking glacier surface, but it was not strong enough to take my weight.

Jim said his thighs were hurting; I didn’t know whether they were badly bruised or broken. I told him not to speak too loudly as I thought the sound vibrations might bring down the ice that I could see hanging above. This curious anxiety was derived, I imagine, from stories of sopranos breaking glasses by singing high notes. I take it as indicating that when I came to I was alert; more than that, in fact. Looking back on what I did subsequent to those events, I think I must have been ready to spring out of the place in one leap.

Instantaneously, I’m back there again. We can see around in the dim blue cavern, and although a shaft of light has followed us down through the curving crystalline walls, we can’t see the sky. I feel my snow goggles. They have been crushed and flattened against my skull above my right eye and blood is streaming down my face. I rip them off.

McFarlane can do nothing for himself. I must get help. I can’t assume that Hillary will find us; certainly not quickly, perhaps never. When he last saw us we were heading towards an edge of the Himalayan range that divided Nepal from Tibet, which is five kilometres – most of it ice – away from the tent where he is waiting for us. For all he knows we could have been in any of that ice and, if the hole we have made is not big, it may be invisible even from a moderate distance.

Did I think I was going to die? Climbers are being beckoned by death much of the time, but, with the help of their skill, their equipment and their trusted companions, they wave the invitation away. I still had the first two of these: panic didn’t enter into it, and in this respect I was no different from all those in similar situations, not only in mountaineering, who know their craft and keep their heads.

The crevasse here is almost two metres wide at the bottom and overhanging. It doesn’t look climbable. At least there is no farther to fall. Without noticing the damage to McFarlane’s knuckles, I put my woollen gloves on his hands, over his silk gloves. This leaves me with only silk gloves, but I find one of my canvas gloves and put it on my left hand.

I untie the rope from his waist where he has a few coils around him and then retie it to him. If I am to get out I want as much rope as possible because I don’t know how complicated the spaces might be down here, nor do I have any idea how far we have fallen. Something comes back to me here from a childhood story about a long thread that helped find the way in a labyrinth.

First I flounder across the great pile of powdery debris beside me, before dropping down and squeezing between the ice walls. A few metres farther on I look up and see a tiny point of daylight far above. The crevasse here is narrower, and the only way out, if there is one, is straight up. Near me a sliver of ice rises as a thin ramp attached to one wall. Above this, well above my head, there is another tongue of ice. I have stopped worrying about whether any of it will fall on me. With my back to one ice wall, and using these formations for added support, I find I can gain height by cutting little nicks in the wall with my ice axe and pushing against these with my crampons. Most of the time I have two feet on the opposite wall. At one point ice overhanging my head forces me to execute an awkward turn to face the other way. I’m high up, resting on another sliver of ice, hoping that it is strong enough to hold me. There is no pile of debris below me now to cushion my fall; just hard ice. I have moved vertically all the way; there is nothing below me. If I go down I’m almost certainly done for.

When my head is only about