The Conquest Of Everest (1953) Full Movies
The Conquest Of Everest (1953) Full Movies
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00:00:00 [Music]
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00:01:22 June the 2nd, 1953.
00:01:25 People in London were excited and with good reason.
00:01:30 A Queen had been crowned.
00:01:33 On June the 2nd, everything was new and exciting.
00:01:40 [Music]
00:01:50 And to add to the cheers, the newspapers gave an extra of extras.
00:01:54 Britain had won a new victory.
00:01:57 Men had climbed Mount Everest.
00:02:01 [Music]
00:02:11 A procession in London, another in Central Asia.
00:02:15 With garlands around their necks, the climbers come down from the top of the world.
00:02:20 At the eleventh attempt, after thirty years of defeats, men have achieved the impossible.
00:02:29 [Music]
00:02:32 Here now is Tenzing riding in state.
00:02:35 Tenzing, who led the other Sherpas, and together with Hillary, set his feet on the summit.
00:02:41 [Music]
00:02:53 And here now, thrown on a balcony, are Hunt, Hillary, and Tenzing, having conquered the peak that we now call Everest.
00:03:02 [Music]
00:03:05 For the origin of that name, you must visit a churchyard in Hull.
00:03:10 Once there was a mountain called Peak 15.
00:03:15 Nothing was known about it.
00:03:17 But in 1852, the surveyors found it was the highest in the world.
00:03:22 And they named it after their surveyor general, Sir George Everest, a far cry from the Himalayas.
00:03:32 [Music]
00:03:49 The range of the Himalayas is 1500 miles long, and includes a great number of the world's highest mountains.
00:03:57 Many of them still unexplored.
00:04:00 Most of them still unclimbed.
00:04:03 But the highest of these is Everest.
00:04:06 [Music]
00:04:12 When men were first drawn to Everest, it was an unknown quantity.
00:04:17 And it lay between two unknown countries.
00:04:20 Tibet to the north, Nepal to the south.
00:04:24 Nepal in those days was closed to all foreigners.
00:04:27 But in 1920, entrance was secured to Tibet.
00:04:32 When the first climbers went to Everest, they hardly knew where it was.
00:04:38 And what it was, was something entirely beyond them.
00:04:43 It was thousands of feet higher than any other peak yet climbed.
00:04:47 And not only higher, also vastly more difficult.
00:04:53 Nobody in those days knew what really high altitude meant.
00:04:58 Could one even live at such heights?
00:05:02 Nobody knew.
00:05:04 [Music]
00:05:08 The early expeditions, though they failed, did make the picture much clearer.
00:05:13 The problems of Everest emerged.
00:05:17 Problems of supply and support, unbelievably treacherous weather.
00:05:23 [Sound of wind]
00:05:25 And worst of all, a problem of altitude itself.
00:05:29 The terrifying lack of oxygen.
00:05:32 [Music]
00:05:36 Several of the early climbers attacking the summit from the north got within a thousand feet of it.
00:05:43 Mallory and Irving, for instance, who attempted it in 1924.
00:05:49 Neither of them came back.
00:05:53 Why should a man climb Everest?
00:05:57 It was Mallory himself who gave the classic reply.
00:06:01 Because it is there.
00:06:04 Everest remained a challenge.
00:06:07 Aloof.
00:06:09 Inviolate.
00:06:11 Murderous.
00:06:13 [Music]
00:06:39 After World War II, Nepal began to open.
00:06:43 Tibet, for her part, was closing.
00:06:46 Now, for the first time, Everest could be reached from the south.
00:06:50 Eric Shipton, in 1951, led out a reconnaissance expedition.
00:06:55 He brought back much new knowledge of the unknown southern approaches,
00:06:59 and especially of the strange high valley which is called the Western Coombe.
00:07:06 An all-important reconnaissance.
00:07:10 The next year, 1952, the Swiss attempted it.
00:07:14 The green thread shows where they got to.
00:07:17 They got very high, but with suffering.
00:07:22 In October 1952, Colonel John Hunt was called over from Germany to lead a new British expedition.
00:07:30 He was summoned by a joint committee of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club.
00:07:36 And here he received his briefing.
00:07:38 As quickly as possible, he must select a team, about a dozen of the very best climbers.
00:07:43 And as quickly as possible, he must equip that team with the very best possible equipment.
00:07:50 A project like this means a vast amount of planning and testing.
00:07:56 What most needed checking and double-checking was oxygen.
00:08:00 For no apparatus hitherto had filled the bill upon Everest.
00:08:05 Committees conferred, experts devised, and the climbers themselves played the role of guinea pigs
00:08:12 in a decompression chamber at Farnborough, where the air is pumped out and pumped out
00:08:18 till breathing becomes very difficult.
00:08:21 As difficult as if you were on Everest.
00:08:25 There is a gauge showing the equivalent altitude.
00:08:31 Here is Pew, a research doctor, using himself as a specimen.
00:08:36 His oxygen mask is off.
00:08:38 He is exposed to anoxia.
00:08:41 The air is getting thinner and thinner.
00:08:44 At such heights, when you're lacking oxygen, you may think you're normal.
00:08:49 But you're not.
00:08:51 No, not normal.
00:08:53 You're moving in a dream, a dream that deludes and debilitates.
00:09:00 Pew is now, as it were, at the very summit of Everest.
00:09:04 He's approaching unconsciousness.
00:09:10 Also tested at Farnborough was a new material for tents.
00:09:14 Extremely light and 100% windproof, a kind of nylon cotton.
00:09:19 To prove it was windproof, it was tried out in a wind tunnel in a gale of 100 miles an hour,
00:09:25 which is what you meet when you get to the shoulder of Everest, where this expedition is going.
00:09:31 The wind never stops up there, howling through the gap between the peaks.
00:09:38 (helicopter blades whirring)
00:09:42 A climber climbs with his guts, his brains, his soul, and his feet.
00:09:57 For boots, as for all other items, many firms were consulted and many tests carried out.
00:10:03 In the old chamber at Farnborough, a scientist puts the boots through it.
00:10:08 A known boot, white, is compared with an unknown, black.
00:10:15 Rations.
00:10:17 In 1952, British climbers and the Himalayas decided that tins were a nuisance.
00:10:22 So for this expedition, something quite new was used, a method known as "beef."
00:10:28 All the air is removed from your ration, and you are left with a packet which is both very light and waterproof.
00:10:35 And it can stand up to hammering.
00:10:38 Such a packet does not look edible, but open it, let in the air again, and what have you got?
00:10:45 You've got sugar.
00:10:48 Everything had to be thought of.
00:10:51 There will be wide crevasses, therefore let there be ladders, but let them be of aluminium.
00:10:58 Yet however good the equipment, and however meticulous the plans,
00:11:06 the goddess mother of the world, as the Tibetans called her, can only be conquered by men.
00:11:16 Here now is Hunt trying on his boots in England.
00:11:21 He is going to climb a long way.
00:11:24 This was Hunt's problem.
00:11:32 St. Paul's is 365 feet high, one fourteenth part of a mile.
00:11:39 The highest mountain in the British Isles is Ben Nevis.
00:11:44 The highest mountain in Europe is Mont Blanc.
00:11:51 The highest mountain in the world is five and a half miles high.
00:12:06 [Music]
00:12:11 The expedition reaches Nepal.
00:12:26 Crate upon crate, bale upon bale of equipment.
00:12:31 There are no roads into Nepal. It all had to come by cable railway.
00:12:38 [Music]
00:12:44 [Music]
00:12:49 The capital city of Nepal is Kathmandu.
00:13:08 It was here that the expedition assembled.
00:13:11 It was here that the march would start.
00:13:14 Few Europeans have ever been to this city.
00:13:17 It lies cut off from the rest of the world by mountains.
00:13:22 [Music]
00:13:26 There are no roads into Nepal, but there are roads inside it.
00:13:33 So if you're in Nepal and you want a jeep or a steamroller, you've just got to carry it in.
00:13:39 [Music]
00:14:07 Kathmandu is a city of temples.
00:14:10 The eyes of the gods are always upon you.
00:14:13 That is only natural among the Himalayas.
00:14:16 For to both Hindus and Buddhists, the Himalayas are sacred.
00:14:21 Shiva and Vishnu, Brahma and Buddha, they all live side by side here.
00:14:28 [Music]
00:14:32 [Music]
00:14:36 The British Embassy.
00:14:55 And here the climbers meet the Sherpas who will carry their loads on the mountain,
00:14:59 led by that great Sherpa, Tenzing.
00:15:03 With Hunt is Major Charles Wiley, who being an officer of Gurkha's, can speak to the Sherpas in Nepali.
00:15:09 This meeting is the first milestone.
00:15:13 Another milestone. Tenzing now meets Hillary.
00:15:19 Then Hunt and Tenzing and Wiley go into conference.
00:15:22 The march is about to start and there is much to discuss.
00:15:26 There are 15 tons to be shifted across very difficult country.
00:15:31 It is for Hunt to explain the points of the route to Everest.
00:15:35 We are now at Kathmandu, here.
00:15:40 The march to the base of Everest is about 175 miles.
00:15:45 All the way from Kathmandu to Everest, there are great mountain ridges cutting across our path.
00:15:52 For Kathmandu, it's only about 4,000 feet above sea level.
00:15:57 The foot of Everest is about 18,000.
00:16:02 In the camp outside Kathmandu, the expedition gets ready to start.
00:16:07 Tenzing is wearing his lucky Swiss hat.
00:16:13 And here is Hillary with his homemade skiing cap.
00:16:18 350 additional porters have been engaged from the people of the valley.
00:16:26 The porters load up.
00:16:28 The latest in tents or sleeping bags, portable radio equipment, beverage boxes or oxygen cylinders, ladders or ropes or boiled sweets or pemmican.
00:16:37 So off they go on the first long lap.
00:16:41 But what they're carrying also is a dream that is turning ripe.
00:16:48 [Music]
00:17:17 There is no need for oxygen yet, but masks must be worn for practice.
00:17:28 John Hunt is practicing.
00:17:30 So is the rest of his team.
00:17:33 All of them bound for a cold, white world.
00:17:37 A world that is all up and up.
00:17:41 But here it is still up and down.
00:17:44 Ridge after gorge, gorge after ridge.
00:17:48 And hot.
00:17:50 Hot work for all.
00:17:54 It is still many miles, many days, many buckets of sweat to the snow world.
00:18:01 [Music]
00:18:19 The roof of the world is bare, but the eaves beneath it are lush.
00:18:29 Up above may be crags and ice.
00:18:32 Here there are seas of rhododendrons.
00:18:37 [Music]
00:19:05 All of them bound for a cold, white world.
00:19:10 [Music]
00:19:39 How many days to Everest.
00:19:42 This bridge was reached in the morning after a four-hour march.
00:19:46 Four hours and four or five thousand feet.
00:19:50 A steep drop down through the pine trees.
00:19:54 It was just about time for breakfast.
00:19:58 [Music]
00:20:13 A Sherpa cook is frying chapattis.
00:20:16 Four hours marching before breakfast makes even campfire cooking taste good.
00:20:23 And a pint of tea for George Lowe and his climbing partner Hilary makes life seem reasonable once more.
00:20:30 [Music]
00:20:34 Wilfred Noyce, schoolmaster, has work to do.
00:20:38 He's also a writer.
00:20:40 [Music]
00:20:53 The march continues and so does the lush vegetation.
00:20:58 But the lushness will not be for long.
00:21:01 For ahead and above lies the Sherpa's own country.
00:21:06 The stony cradle of a rugged clan.
00:21:10 [Music]
00:21:21 "Omani pemihum," hail the jewel in the lotus.
00:21:26 This is the prayer that was written upon those flags.
00:21:29 A prayer much used in this country.
00:21:32 For at last, this is the country of the Sherpas.
00:21:36 [Music]
00:21:49 When they come to a sacred wall, they always pass it on the left.
00:21:53 For their prayer is carved upon it.
00:21:56 Hail the jewel in the lotus.
00:22:00 [Music]
00:22:04 No, the lushness was not for long.
00:22:07 These are the foothills of the Himalayas.
00:22:10 Foothills that are bigger than many ordinary mountains.
00:22:14 A bare, craggy land.
00:22:17 Sharply ridged and steeply gorged.
00:22:21 A land thrust upwards by subterranean violence.
00:22:26 And carved by wind and weather.
00:22:30 [Music]
00:22:39 Every day now, the world grew higher about them.
00:22:43 Higher and more elemental.
00:22:46 And the water under the bridges grew colder and colder.
00:22:50 This one crosses a river called the Dukosi.
00:22:53 The name means the milk river.
00:22:56 In the monsoon, its waters are white from the snows of Everest.
00:23:00 Like all the bridges in this country, this one looks unsafe.
00:23:05 But the Sherpas have seen to that.
00:23:07 It carries a prayer flag on it.
00:23:10 [Music]
00:23:39 [Music]
00:23:48 As they neared the village of Namche Bazaar, the climbers received a great welcome.
00:23:56 Men, women and children came out to treat them to Chang.
00:24:00 A kind of beer brewed from rice or millet.
00:24:03 And as thick as potato soup.
00:24:05 Here, every one of the climbers knew that he was among friends.
00:24:10 Lo from New Zealand knew that.
00:24:13 And Gregory from Blackpool knew it too.
00:24:16 Yes, they're all pleased to meet the Sherpas.
00:24:19 It's a great day for all, including the children.
00:24:23 A good day for everything and everyone.
00:24:26 And a carefree day, compared with the days ahead.
00:24:30 [Music]
00:24:43 The Sherpas are part traders and part farmers.
00:24:46 And they live very high and very hard.
00:24:50 But they are a cheerful, hospitable people.
00:24:53 Fond of singing and dancing and laughing.
00:24:57 A mountain people and semi-nomadic.
00:25:01 One family may have four houses.
00:25:04 The lowest house, perhaps nearly 9,000 for winter.
00:25:09 From there you move up to grow your potatoes or barley.
00:25:12 Both very hardy crops, like the people who grow them.
00:25:16 [Music]
00:25:21 They have come now to Tangboche, the last outpost.
00:25:26 The boxes and bales have arrived.
00:25:28 And the porters from Katmandu have now done their bit and can go.
00:25:32 Some of them are feeling the cold for the height is 14,000.
00:25:36 [Chatter]
00:25:41 Hunt and Westmacott pay them and off they go back to the ordinary world below.
00:25:46 It is now nearly April.
00:25:49 From here to the foot of Everest, the carry will be done by Sherpas.
00:25:54 [Chatter]
00:26:02 Each member of this expedition has his special job or jobs.
00:26:06 Pew, for instance, is here to do medical research.
00:26:10 But he also is in charge of messing.
00:26:16 And Hunt himself is not only leader and planner, he is also the expedition's treasurer.
00:26:22 Gregory is their official photographer and deals with the postal arrangements.
00:26:27 Michael Ward is the expedition's doctor.
00:26:30 He will also help Pew with his research.
00:26:32 Van's special job is wireless with meteorology thrown in.
00:26:37 Each of these climbers has to do more than climb.
00:26:43 It's colder here.
00:26:45 Lo has acquired a warm hat, such as they wear in Tibet.
00:26:52 And once again they put on their oxygen equipment, complete with cylinders this time.
00:26:58 Now is the time for practice and testing and acclimatization.
00:27:03 In the next few weeks they must become extra efficient and extra and ultra fit.
00:27:10 But these goings-on seem strange to the natives of Tangboche.
00:27:15 Hunt tests out his portable wireless.
00:27:17 On the mountains there will be a series of camps.
00:27:20 Those camps must keep in communication with each other.
00:27:28 Tom Bordillon is in charge of the oxygen equipment.
00:27:31 But a letter from England is at this moment more important.
00:28:00 The monastery of Tangboche is peaceful amongst the mountains.
00:28:05 Beyond this are merely the elements to encounter which requires both faith and discipline.
00:28:13 Wheels upon wheels upon prayer wheels.
00:28:17 Over and over, omami peme hum.
00:28:30 Round and round and round.
00:28:43 So this is it.
00:28:45 This is what they came to see.
00:28:48 This is what they came to climb.
00:28:53 Hunt's plan of attack is now developing.
00:28:56 The scale of Everest is so huge that you could almost think of it as three mountains.
00:29:03 The first mountain starts at the base camp at a height of 18,000 feet.
00:29:10 And goes up into the western coon.
00:29:13 Round about here at 21,200 feet.
00:29:18 There the second mountain begins.
00:29:21 It ends on the south coon here at 26,000 feet.
00:29:28 And then comes the third onto the summit.
00:29:34 What we had to do was to get up three tons of stores, equipment and oxygen from base camp up into the coon.
00:29:44 From there we had to get at least 500 pounds up here onto the south coon.
00:29:54 This is the coonbo glacier.
00:29:58 The immediate job is to find a site for a base camp.
00:30:01 The site is chosen by Hillary Band, Westmercat and Lowe.
00:30:05 Right up the glacier near the icefall at a height of 18,000 feet.
00:30:10 Higher than the highest peak in Europe.
00:30:13 The assault on the icefall will be launched from here.
00:30:16 [Music]
00:30:46 This is like building a fortress.
00:30:49 A fortress, a home, a depot, a junction, a general office.
00:30:54 Foundations of ice and ramparts of nylon cotton.
00:30:58 [Music]
00:31:13 Thirteen tons of a stuff is arriving here.
00:31:17 Mainly carried up from Tangboche by local porters.
00:31:21 The tents are up.
00:31:23 The next job is the icefall.
00:31:26 We are now established at base camp.
00:31:29 And the first problem is to get our supplies up to camp four.
00:31:33 High up in the western coon.
00:31:35 The main obstacle is the icefall.
00:31:38 Some 2,000 feet high.
00:31:41 Owing to the climbing difficulties in the icefall,
00:31:45 laden porters require three days to reach camp four.
00:31:50 So we will have to put up intermediate camps.
00:31:53 Approximately here and here.
00:31:58 [Music]
00:32:10 The reconnaissance falls to hillary, low and band.
00:32:14 [Music]
00:32:19 The glare of the ice can burn.
00:32:22 This advance party must advance through a frozen but burning forest.
00:32:28 A forest as haunted by danger as any jungle in the world.
00:32:33 A nightmare of spikes and chasms.
00:32:36 A wrinkled and ravaged face.
00:32:39 But a face that is always changing.
00:32:42 For the ice is always on the move.
00:32:46 Cracking, rumbling, roaring.
00:32:49 [Music]
00:33:17 [Explosion]
00:33:25 The reconnaissance is underway.
00:33:28 Hillary is cutting steps at a place which now has a name.
00:33:32 They call it Hillary's Horror.
00:33:35 Band is getting out marker flags.
00:33:38 As they discover the route, it has to be marked and secured.
00:33:42 [Explosion]
00:33:51 For three weeks on end, relay on relay of Sherpas must carry their loads up the icefall.
00:33:57 So the route has got to be made as safe as possible.
00:34:01 Though safe up here remains a comparative word.
00:34:05 [Explosion]
00:34:10 The route. First find it, then secure it.
00:34:14 War is fixing guide ropes.
00:34:17 [Explosion]
00:34:25 This place also has a name. The climbers called it the Nutcracker.
00:34:29 By now it will have vanished.
00:34:32 But no one knew then whether it was opening or closing.
00:34:36 [Explosion]
00:35:02 Thirty-four Sherpas will carry their loads through here.
00:35:06 Some 40 pounds per man.
00:35:08 So Ward goes on fixing ropes.
00:35:11 [Music]
00:35:40 [Explosion]
00:35:50 [Music]
00:36:00 [Explosion]
00:36:03 [Music]
00:36:32 [Music]
00:36:47 [Explosion]
00:36:52 Avalanche is above, business continues below.
00:36:56 At one of the icefall camps, they have just received their final supplies of oxygen.
00:37:01 Within the next few days, the pioneers will have finished their job on the icefall.
00:37:06 The route will be open to the Western Coo.
00:37:09 For the others at base camp, it was a time of waiting.
00:37:13 Also a time for experiments.
00:37:16 Pew seizes this chance for a work capacity test.
00:37:19 And George Band is the unfortunate subject.
00:37:26 Pew's experiments were not very popular with the rest of the expedition.
00:37:30 When someone came into camp after a hard day on the icefall,
00:37:34 Pew would harness them into a contraption of glass and rubber,
00:37:38 and then keep them stepping on and off a box until they were exhausted.
00:37:45 Hence the name, work capacity test.
00:37:48 You work until you are ready to drop.
00:37:56 Meanwhile, more ordinary things take place in base camp.
00:38:00 A haircut by the surgeon Evans.
00:38:02 But soon he'll be back on the icefall.
00:38:05 Back and up to a world where haircuts really don't matter.
00:38:12 Back to the icefall, the high road.
00:38:15 This high road has now been established.
00:38:18 It is open to heavy traffic.
00:38:20 Load after load, the weapons to conquer Everest.
00:38:28 The ferry service moves up with Ward in the lead.
00:38:40 And the moment has come for them all to put on their crampons,
00:38:44 the spikes that are fixed on the boots to give a grip on the ice.
00:38:51 This party includes the special correspondent of the Times.
00:38:55 This is the first time he has ever been up a mountain.
00:39:00 This may be amusing to Ward,
00:39:02 but the correspondents don't often have to fix spikes on their boots.
00:39:16 Others have been up before them, have dumped their loads,
00:39:19 and are now coming down again to base camp.
00:39:22 A constant coming and going.
00:39:24 From now until the end of May, this road will be much frequented.
00:39:31 This rope is Wiley.
00:39:33 When a party is coming down, this is the key position.
00:39:42 Relay upon relay, Wiley and his sherpas have come down.
00:39:46 Ward and his sherpas will go up with the correspondent on the rope.
00:39:49 He will tell you how all this struck him.
00:39:52 Yes, struck him is the right phrase.
00:39:55 It struck me quite considerably.
00:39:58 Climbing the icefall is...
00:39:59 how can I put it?
00:40:01 Like going up the kitchen stairs for three or four miles at a go,
00:40:05 three steps at a time, and carrying the baby.
00:40:09 The whole thing, you see, is just like a squashed meringue,
00:40:13 only of course rather bigger, and men are just insects in it,
00:40:16 very small insects, the lobe and the crumble.
00:40:20 A very dangerous meringue, too, full of crevasses.
00:40:26 I climbed up behind Mike Ward, what was fittingly called Mike's Horror,
00:40:31 a place where nasty things were always liable to fall on you.
00:40:35 [explosion]
00:40:55 [music]
00:41:08 Each man with some 40 pounds on his back,
00:41:11 and it's quite as hard as it looks.
00:41:15 [explosion]
00:41:25 [music]
00:41:51 It was a long, long way.
00:41:53 Snow had fallen and covered the track, as it did every afternoon,
00:41:57 and Mike up in front of me was having to probe it with his ice axe,
00:42:01 just to find out as a matter of interest if there was anything under...
00:42:05 [music]
00:42:25 The crevasses are innumerable and horrid.
00:42:29 Some of the big ones are sort of blue color inside,
00:42:32 very hungry looking, rather as I should think the belly of a whale must look.
00:42:37 [music]
00:42:58 As you get higher on the ice fall, the effects of altitude naturally get more noticeable.
00:43:04 We're getting on for 20,000 feet now, I suppose.
00:43:09 Each step becomes more of an effort, and each fall more of a pleasure.
00:43:13 You get more breathless and more fuddled.
00:43:16 [music]
00:43:29 [explosion]
00:43:39 Ward goes on meticulously, relentlessly,
00:43:43 up and up towards the camp on the ice fall.
00:43:46 I was looking forward to this, our journey's end, as a true home from home.
00:43:51 It turned out to be very like those collections of damp and derelict huts
00:43:55 in the corners of disused railway yards.
00:43:58 It had its unpretentious comforts, though.
00:44:01 There's food in those tents and cheerful company, as you can see.
00:44:05 [wind]
00:44:27 At the top of the ice fall on the brink of the coombe is Camp 3 at 20,500.
00:44:34 This camp was established towards the end of April.
00:44:38 Not a very comfortable camp.
00:44:40 In the mornings it might be fine, but every afternoon there was snow.
00:44:46 This is merely a transit camp, merely 2,000 feet from their base,
00:44:50 but 9,000 feet from the summit.
00:44:58 And the traffic goes on continually.
00:45:01 Some stay the night at Camp 3, some must go back down the ice fall.
00:45:06 It is all according to plan.
00:45:11 The two New Zealanders, Lowe and Hillary, have just arrived here with batteries.
00:45:15 It was a special journey.
00:45:17 Now they have to go down again.
00:45:26 It's an undertaking to climb the ice fall from base camp and return down there the same day.
00:45:43 Beyond Camp 3 is a world of peaks and clouds.
00:46:05 In this strange high world lies the Western Coombe.
00:46:10 The floor is frozen snow to a depth that no one can guess.
00:46:16 Above and around are the walls of the Everest Massif,
00:46:21 walls that surpass the imagination.
00:46:41 [Music]
00:47:06 Camp 4, the advanced base.
00:47:08 Up here in the heart of the Coombe, the climbers will make their new home.
00:47:13 The tents go up, supervised by Tenzing.
00:47:17 He first came to Everest in 1935 with Shipton.
00:47:21 The Sherpas under his command must make a good job of Camp 4.
00:47:32 For a fortnight or more, 30 human beings will live here,
00:47:36 and it is not too easy living so long at this altitude.
00:47:40 So Tenzing will make things ship-shake.
00:47:47 Van comes in with his porters, still 40 pounds per man, and every pound of it essential.
00:47:54 Already they are moving slowly.
00:47:57 Altitude tells up here and begins to sap a man's energy.
00:48:02 If they could use their oxygen, that would make things much easier.
00:48:05 But oxygen is too precious.
00:48:07 It has to be saved for the unknown heights above them.
00:48:12 In Camp 4, Hillary and Evans discuss the next phase,
00:48:16 and the next phase is dangerous and difficult.
00:48:20 Above them towers the famous, or infamous, Lotse Face.
00:48:26 Hunt is now planning the attack upon it.
00:48:30 Camp 4 has now been established, and we have successfully carried the three tons of supplies up here.
00:48:39 The next stage, and the really crucial one, is up the Lotse Face to the South Col.
00:48:46 Once again, this means putting in intermediate camps, 5, 6, and 7.
00:48:55 [Music]
00:49:10 In making the route up the Lotse Face, the pioneers were low and angema.
00:49:17 At first they made good progress,
00:49:20 but living there night after night, they worked slower day after day.
00:49:28 They did not know it themselves, but the altitude was weakening them,
00:49:32 for they were very high above the cool.
00:49:36 [Music]
00:50:01 Progress on the Lotse Face grew slower and slower.
00:50:06 [Music]
00:50:22 From the two camps in the cool, Camp 5 is the dots in the left-hand bottom corner of the picture,
00:50:28 the others still looked upwards.
00:50:32 [Music]
00:50:38 At last, John Hunt came up to see what was causing the delay.
00:50:43 The reasons were only too clear.
00:50:45 Newly fallen snow made the going very difficult,
00:50:48 but far worse than that was the strain on the lungs.
00:50:53 [Music]
00:50:59 On the Lotse Face without oxygen, no one can move at all fast.
00:51:04 To move at all is something.
00:51:09 One slow step at a time and every step an achievement.
00:51:14 [Music]
00:51:35 Breathing is now the first and last reality.
00:51:39 [Music]
00:51:54 The time was running out.
00:51:56 The original estimate was three or four days.
00:52:00 At the end of nine days, it was still not done,
00:52:04 and there was still over a thousand feet to go.
00:52:11 Hunt had sent up reinforcements, Ward and a Sherpa,
00:52:15 but they too found the job difficult.
00:52:18 The weather continued very bad.
00:52:20 [Music]
00:52:38 They would set out in the morning thinking that they were all right
00:52:42 and start the long drag up the steep snow slopes.
00:52:46 But within the first hour or so, they would tire and have to turn back.
00:52:51 [Music]
00:53:16 Lo and Nnima had spent nine days on the Lotse Face
00:53:21 and pioneered a large part of the route,
00:53:25 but altitude was crippling them.
00:53:29 And in the end, their attack ran down and they descended.
00:53:34 [Music]
00:53:54 The time was running out.
00:53:58 We had now established our intermediate camps above Camp 4,
00:54:03 but we had still not broken through to the South Col.
00:54:08 The time factor was becoming critical.
00:54:11 We had spent ten days on the Lotse Face, considerably more than I'd reckoned on.
00:54:17 Route or no route made a decision.
00:54:20 He sent off Noyce to try and reach the South Col.
00:54:24 At the same time, two groups of Sherpas stood by with their loads high on the Lotse Face.
00:54:30 The Sherpas stood by and Noyce went up and up.
00:54:35 He'd only one man with him, the Sherpa Anilu,
00:54:38 but they were both using oxygen.
00:54:41 Oxygen was precious, but time was even more so.
00:54:46 Their progress was hard to follow, 4,000 feet up through the clouds.
00:54:51 [Music]
00:55:04 And then they were spotted, almost on the Col itself,
00:55:08 and the watchers below knew that the way was open.
00:55:12 The great lift was on.
00:55:15 [Music]
00:55:43 [Music]
00:56:06 Their progress was slow, agonizingly slow.
00:56:11 Two steps and they'd bend over their ice axe and pant and pant and pant.
00:56:19 Ten steps and they'd flop down in the snow, exhausted.
00:56:24 But the Sherpas had guts.
00:56:26 [Music]
00:56:40 The Sherpas were often dragging themselves along on their hands and knees,
00:56:44 battling against the effects of height.
00:56:47 Some of them were out on their feet, weaving and gasping.
00:56:52 But with tremendous heart, they got to the South Col and dropped their loads.
00:56:59 [Music]
00:57:03 Down below, they prepared for possible victory.
00:57:07 [Music]
00:57:24 Now at last, the time has come for assault.
00:57:27 The first assault team is Bordillon and Evans.
00:57:31 Bordillon is busy preparing, giving special attention to oxygen.
00:57:36 Both he and his father are scientists,
00:57:39 and between them, they have developed a new apparatus.
00:57:44 At the same time, Hunt sets off for the South Col,
00:57:47 to lead the support party for the first assault.
00:57:51 This party will help with the equipment and all last minute preparations.
00:57:55 It will also stand by for emergencies.
00:57:59 Bordillon and Evans are adding the finishing touches.
00:58:02 Evans is a very cool head and knows the Himalayas well.
00:58:08 Bordillon is an expert rock climber, a man of exceptional strength.
00:58:14 They are both very fine climbers, and they have need to be.
00:58:20 They have a tough job ahead of them.
00:58:23 [Music]
00:58:52 Bordillon and Evans had one primary mission,
00:58:57 to reach the South Summit and see what lay beyond it.
00:59:02 They would start from Camp 4 and go up to the South Col,
00:59:06 spending a night there at Camp 8.
00:59:11 They would then go straight for the South Summit.
00:59:15 If they reached it and conditions were perfect,
00:59:18 they could then go on and attempt the final peak of Everest itself.
00:59:23 These operations overlap.
00:59:26 Lowe and Gregory are already preparing to support the second assault team.
00:59:31 That team will consist of Hillary and Tenzing.
00:59:34 Tenzing, who at this moment is helping them.
00:59:37 This support party will move off first.
00:59:41 They will all be together on the Col.
00:59:43 Gregory and Lowe and Hillary and Tenzing.
00:59:47 Tenzing, who possibly alone of the Sherpas,
00:59:50 regards the ascent of Everest as not just a job, but an ideal.
00:59:56 Everything now is in order.
00:59:58 The support party moves on.
01:00:02 [Music]
01:00:08 [Music]
01:00:35 The South Col is nearly as high as Annapurna,
01:00:38 then the highest mountain ever climbed.
01:00:43 They say the South Col is like the moon,
01:00:46 a place that is outside man's experience,
01:00:49 a place that has the smell of death about it,
01:00:53 a very hard place.
01:00:56 Life on the Col is dominated by cold,
01:01:00 by lack of oxygen, by the wind.
01:01:04 Above all, by the wind.
01:01:08 [Sound of wind]
01:01:30 It was on this desolate spot that they waited for Bordillon and Evans.
01:01:34 At about half past one, they'd been seen on the south summit,
01:01:37 but the wind had risen again, and they'd been lost in the clouds.
01:01:42 About half past three, they were sighted again, coming down.
01:01:46 It took them three hours, two little dots on the ridge,
01:01:50 before they arrived at the Col.
01:01:54 They were coming in, moving very slowly,
01:01:58 sitting down every hundred yards or so,
01:02:01 and then getting up and trying again.
01:02:05 Hillary went out to meet them,
01:02:08 and they told him that they had reached the south summit,
01:02:11 500 feet from the top.
01:02:14 [Sound of wind]
01:02:31 John Hunt came out and congratulated them,
01:02:35 and they told him of the difficulties of the final ridge.
01:02:39 [Sound of wind]
01:02:48 Then Tenzing met them, and wiped the snow and ice from their faces,
01:02:53 and he fed them with hot drinks.
01:02:56 [Sound of wind]
01:03:03 Their eyelashes were iced up,
01:03:06 their eyebrows covered with snow,
01:03:09 and the pieces of hair hanging from the front of their helmets
01:03:12 were draped with icicles.
01:03:15 [Sound of wind]
01:03:25 Moving very slowly over the south Col. homewards.
01:03:31 It is 11 hours since they set out this morning.
01:03:35 The Col. is a hard place,
01:03:38 but they had been somewhere much harder.
01:03:41 [Sound of wind]
01:03:59 They had been higher that day than any climbers before them
01:04:03 in the whole history of climbing,
01:04:06 only 500 feet lower than the summit of Everest itself.
01:04:13 Tomorrow it's Hillary and Tenzing,
01:04:16 provided the weather holds good.
01:04:19 [Sound of wind]
01:04:28 May the 27th was a wasted day,
01:04:32 a day spent in what? In thinking?
01:04:35 The south Col. is no place for thought.
01:04:38 Most of the time on the Col. a man hardly thinks at all.
01:04:42 When he does, he usually thinks what bliss it would be to get down again.
01:04:48 Down from this blighted and wind-ravaged chunk of the moon,
01:04:52 where everything stops at the wind,
01:04:54 and even inside their sleeping bags,
01:04:57 men feel eternally cold.
01:05:00 [Sound of wind]
01:05:11 The south Col. takes away everything.
01:05:14 It takes away a man's appetite.
01:05:17 It also takes away his sleep, unless he's using oxygen.
01:05:23 Worst of all, it takes away his judgment.
01:05:26 Hillary and Tenzing will need all their judgment tomorrow,
01:05:30 when they set out up that ridge,
01:05:33 if the storm subsides.
01:05:36 [Sound of wind]
01:06:05 [Sound of wind]
01:06:12 Next morning, the storm had subsided.
01:06:17 They could now start up the ridge.
01:06:20 The support party had dwindled.
01:06:22 It was meant to include three Sherpas,
01:06:24 but two of them were sick that morning.
01:06:26 Only a Neema was fit.
01:06:29 So they all had to take extra loads.
01:06:32 They must now carry 50 pounds each,
01:06:34 and on their way, they will pick up yet further loads,
01:06:37 dumped by Hunt and Anamgal two days previously.
01:06:41 That will make 60 pounds each.
01:06:45 It used to be said that at this height,
01:06:48 15 pounds was the maximum.
01:06:51 Fifteen or fifty.
01:06:53 This height remained depressing.
01:06:56 [Music]
01:07:09 [Music]
01:07:37 The task before the second assault party,
01:07:40 consisting of Hillary, Tenzing, Gregory, Lowe, and Ang Neema,
01:07:46 was to get as high as they could on the mountain,
01:07:50 and there, establish a light camp.
01:07:53 Here, Tenzing and Hillary would spend the night
01:07:57 and attack the summit next day.
01:08:02 Gregory, Lowe, and Ang Neema had returned, exhausted.
01:08:07 Ang Neema came on in front.
01:08:09 Gregory behind him kept sitting down.
01:08:12 Lowe had gone ahead to Camp 8, where he fetched his camera.
01:08:18 The wind had been bad, and they had spent a heart-breaking day,
01:08:22 and had come down without oxygen
01:08:25 from the highest camp ever on a mountain.
01:08:29 A very remarkable feat.
01:08:32 [Music]
01:08:41 Gregory took about ten minutes to cover the last 50 yards,
01:08:46 moving along a bit, and then crumpling down and resting.
01:08:51 [Music]
01:08:58 Tired, exhausted, but successful,
01:09:03 they had carried the supplies that made the assault possible.
01:09:07 [Music]
01:09:10 The sun goes down on Everest.
01:09:14 The two who are up in Camp 9 will snatch what sleep they can.
01:09:19 And tomorrow, May the 29th...
01:09:25 On May the 29th, down in Camp 4 in the Koum,
01:09:29 everyone waits for the outcome.
01:09:32 Pew walks up and down restlessly.
01:09:35 Hunt looks upwards.
01:09:38 [Music]
01:09:42 But Pew soon has a distraction.
01:09:45 The Sherpa Danamgal has come down from the South Col.
01:09:49 He is the Sherpa who went up with Hunt three days ago
01:09:53 to dump the first supplies for Camp 9 at well over 27,000.
01:09:58 They had come back without oxygen
01:10:01 through driving snow very slowly.
01:10:05 [Music]
01:10:08 Now Danamgal is sick and suffering slightly from frostbite.
01:10:13 [Music]
01:10:17 Danamgal will be up and about again in a day or two,
01:10:21 but in the meantime, everyone's thoughts are on what is happening
01:10:25 on that knife-like ridge running up to the summit.
01:10:29 But the climb today is beyond the reach of human eye,
01:10:33 almost beyond imagination.
01:10:37 [Music]
01:10:44 The time goes very slowly.
01:10:47 Where had they got to?
01:10:50 The answer was they had passed the South Summit
01:10:53 and were well on the way towards the peak of Everest itself.
01:10:57 [Music]
01:11:03 Two very small men cutting steps in the roof of the world.
01:11:09 On the right there are tremendous fingers of ice
01:11:12 hanging over this great Kangshung face about 18,000 feet high.
01:11:17 And we had to keep off those because if you step on a cornice
01:11:20 it gives way under you and precipitates you down the face.
01:11:24 We're starting to slow down a bit, getting a little tired,
01:11:28 and I think we're almost getting a little desperate
01:11:31 in our seeking for the summit.
01:11:35 Well, I cut down the back of one ridge and around the back of another ridge,
01:11:39 and the summit never seemed to be coming any closer.
01:11:42 But finally I cut down the back of another one
01:11:45 and saw that the ridge ahead dropped steeply away.
01:11:49 So I looked up and there was a little rounded cone above us
01:11:53 and I knew it was the summit.
01:11:56 All that was needed was a few more blows with the ice axe
01:12:01 and Hillary and Tenzing stood on the summit of Everest.
01:12:07 [Music]
01:12:30 Next day in the comb they were all waiting anxiously.
01:12:35 Then three small dots appeared in the middle of the Lhotse face.
01:12:39 They were Hillary, Tenzing, and Lo.
01:12:45 Hunt looked up and saw them, but he could not see whether they had lost or won.
01:12:50 They came down rope together with Lo in the lead.
01:12:55 [Music]
01:13:24 [Music]
01:13:46 By now they all knew it was true.
01:13:51 The top of the world has been reached.
01:13:54 [Music]
01:14:15 Sherpas and British alike all had their share in this.
01:14:20 [Music]
01:14:31 29,000 feet high.
01:14:35 Only two men in the world have reached that height on their feet.
01:14:40 One of them born in New Zealand, the other born under Everest.
01:14:47 [Music]
01:15:02 These are the men.
01:15:05 The men who paved the way to victory.
01:15:09 [Music]
01:15:25 Up above, 7,000 feet higher, is where these two were yesterday.
01:15:33 And why did they climb it?
01:15:37 They climbed it because it is there.
01:15:41 [Music]
01:16:10 (dramatic music)