WORLD’S HIGHEST HUMAN WINTER DWELLING

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29390, 17 December 1960, Page 10

WORLD’S HIGHEST HUMAN WINTER DWELLING

Party Prepares For Experiments .

[By DESMOND DOIG, Official Reporter with the 1960 Hillary Exnedition] nil. GRIFFITH PUGH, who will direct our expedition’s important physiological programme, has said that constructing and inhabiting a wintering hut at high altitude in the Himalayas is an extremely hazardous undertaking. No one knows anything about snow conditions, wind velocity and temperatures during the long Himalayan winter—certainly not at the altitudes our scientists have chosen for their experiments.

To the local people our undertaking is regarded as madness. They descend from high summer villages at the first sign of approaching winter, taking with them their yak, sheep and goats, great baskets of potatoes and mountainous bundles of dried grass. They know that they have to face the winter siege but that at the lower levels it will be not so grim.

Life goes coldly on at altitudes of 12.000 and 13.000 feet. Above that no-one really knows what happens, but the colourful local mind populates the high winter scene with raging demons, yetis and blue-bearded snow lions. Even the serene gods who dwell on great mountain peaks appear in terrifying aspect and their clamour is sometimes heard above the scream of the wind and through the formless insulation of snow-laden mists. To try to live under such conditions would be certain death. Suitable Sites Establishing the two huts in which our scientists and a few human guinea-pigs will spend the coming winter at altitudes of 17.800 and 19,150 feet has absorbed the interest and efforts of most of our party over the last few weeks. Norman Hardie, Wally Romanes, Barry Bishop and Jim Milledge have battled with the fierce problems of selecting suitable sites and getting building material up to them ever since they arrived in the wintering area, direct from Katmandu. Heavy unseasonal snow delayed their progress—winds on the chosen Ama Dablam col were knife-sharp and freezing: they needed the manpower which our yeti hunt was largely employing. Yet much of the difficult task was accomplished before a meeting occurred between the expedition’s two parties, one led by Sir Edmund Hillary (yeti-hunting in the remote Rolwaling area), and the other by Norman Hardie. More than 100 heavy loads of building material and essential supplies had been carried on to the inhospitable Ama Dablam col. The lower hut at 17,800 feet was constructed of local wood, aluminium building paper, wire netting. stout canvas and stone, and promptly named Likpa Lodge—vague sherpa for “Creation.” Gale-Force Wintls When Ed Hillary arrived over the formidable Tashi Lapcha pass to shoulder the problems of establishing the two wintering huts, only those problems connected with the top one remained, and they were serious enough. Gale-force winds were the main trouble, but the selected site at 19.500 feet had only one precipitous escape route, which might be impossible under winter conditions; deep snow provided at best an unstable platform for the hut. Hillary decided that the site for the top hut be abandoned in preference for another at slightly lower altitude, on the Mingbo glacier, and better sheltered from the wind.

There the job immediately began of levelling the foundation. trampling and beating the surface snow into a compact icy mass and putting together the ingeniously prefabricated hut. The base of 14 sections, bolted firmly, was laid on two pieces of plywood sunk into the snow and well trampled over until they became part almost of the glacial ice. On them were laid four steel stabilising jacks and on the jacks rested the base. This extraordinary volume of work was accomplished in a day, at the gasping, lung-emptying altitude of 19,150 feet.

Next day was even more spectacular. The 90 remaining sections of the hut put together, in the words of Hillary, “with the judicious use of a sledge hammer, but actually she fitted together like a charm.” Compartment There on the high Mingbo glacier sat a construction looking for all the world like the compartment of a London tube train. This even raised a single thought out at incapacitating high altitude (physiologists note). I saw a London tube today That evidently lost its way. Perhaps, like me, you think it silly To stray so far from Piccadilly. Holding the strange construction firmly to its icy foundations are 11 stout wire cables attached to “dead men”—bags filled with trampled snow and buried deep in the glacial ice. The whole construction has been gone over with putty and adhesive tape, a petrol heater installed and, according to those who spent their first night in the hut, “it was a good, comfortable job.” In time a small generator will provide electricity for lighting and cooking. The only remaining unknown factor besides the hazards of wind and temperature and a high altitude process known as “deterioration,” is the effect on personality. How will six or seven people, living on top of each other under formidable conditions, and a long period of time, make out? What neuroses, frustration and clashes

of temperament will be generated among them? Stocking this high hut with food, fuel and scientific equipment continues. Even while these two huts were being constructed and some of us were still busy hunting the yeti and engaging ourselves in bouts of persuasive conversation with the villagers of Khumjung in an effort to borrow their yeti scalp, some of our mountaineers were doing what comes naturally—scaling mountains. Hard Climb Tom Nevison and Pat Barcham with sherpa Annullu made a difficult climb to the summit of an unnamed 20,600-foot peak in the Ngojumbo glacier region. Jim Milledge, Peter Mulgrew and Barry Bishop persistently tried to scale a 21,000-foot peak north of Ama Dablam and were as persistently beaten by cold, difficult ice conditions, and lack of time. In an endeavour to survey a new route on to Makalu and Lhotse, Norman Hardie, Mike Gill and Wally Romanes have set out on an exploratory trip toward the head of the Imja glacier. Marlin Perkins, Griffith Pugh, Banhu Banerjee and myself are at our final base camp near Thyangboche, a beautiful monastery village set in magnificent surroundings. Mount Everest towers above the valley at one end, the closer and impossible Ama Dablam appears to make a dwarf even of Everest, and all about are other impressive peaks, many unnamed, most of them unsealed. Below us the valley is filled with stunted pines and great rocks carved with Tibetan prayers by the devout; a Japanese garden in a Himalayan paradise. Nunnery In a nunnery below the sherpa house which we have rented as our mess, lounge-about and general store, are two daughters of our head sherpa, Dawa Tenzing. Nuns and lamas come and watch our activities, swinging prayer wheels and telling their rosaries. An important reincarnate has stopped by for tea; a musk deer came out of the forest one morning to take a long unblinking look into our tents. Winter threatens and we await the coming snow. Then perhaps .a yeti will pass by.

[Copyright, 1960, by World Book Encyclopedia, Chicago. Distributed by Opera Mundi, Paris.]