Norm Hardie in tune with the Sherpas

Press, 30 March 1989, Page 13

Norm Hardie in tune with the Sherpas

By

COLIN MONTEATH

(story and photographs)

Tucked away in the rural Christchurch suburb of Halswell, Norm Hardie beavers quietly in his beloved vineyard. Tousled hair and a broad grin spread across a wrinkled weather-beaten face as I approach. We withdraw into a home filled with paintings and artefacts from the far-flung corners of the Himalaya to continue a conversation begun at the other end of the earth — Antarctica.

Hardie retired from his private civil engineering firm in Christchurch and straight away stepped into the next busy phase of his life. He boarded a U.S. Air Force Starlifter bound for Ross Island, Antarctica and the crisp spring temperatures at New Zealand's Scott Base. Here he spent the five-month summer season as officer-in-charge for the 200 members of the 1983/84 New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme — a challenging and demanding position. He was no stranger to the Antarctica. In 1962 he was a member of the first team of mountaineers to set up a survival school on Ross Island for scientists and aircrews. Inspired, he returned in 1967 as deputy leader and surveyor to Sir Edmund Hillary’s expedition to the virgin Mt Herschel — a mountaineering plum on the coastal fringe of North Victoria Land, some 600 km to the north of Ross Island.

However, it is in the Himalaya, as a result of eight expeditions there, that Norm Hardie’s name is best known. He has surveyed remote mountain valleys in Nepal and studied Sherpa culture. He also pioneered the Yalung Glacier route on Kangchenjunga, third highest peak in the world, reaching the summit in 1955 with the first ascent teams of this British

expedition. Through the New Zealand-based Himalayan Trust aid programme he has helped establish schools, hospitals and bridges in the Mt Everest region and later, the Sagarmatha National Park.

Hardie has been a household name in New Zealand mountain circles since the late 19405. In 1973 this was recognised when he was elected president of the New Zealand Alpine Club. When asked what opportunities there were in the early 1950 s for New Zealanders to venture to the Himalaya it becomes obvious Norm loves nothing better than to talk about his involvement with high mountains. "With the British withdrawal from India, followed by partition, access to the Himalaya was very vague for some years. We tended to study the British expedition methods of the 19305. Because of the war and the lean years that followed there was a decade when no British climbers had experience on big alpine ice routes.

“Like us, the British were cautious about a start into Himalayan climbing. It was a big step when Earle Riddiford’s 1951 Garhwal Expedition went to India. There followed a period of

collaboration with the British on several big expeditions, including Everest, because they needed climbers who had real ice experience from our Southern Alps.”

Hardie himself went to Nepal as early as 1954 as a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club’s Barun Valley Expedition. While climbing several virgin 6000 metre peaks he battled cold winds to set up his theodolite on prominent ridges. He was determined to improve the only available map of this remote region which was put together after the first aircraft flight over Mt Everest in 1933. Later in 1954, with Englishman Charles Evans who was also a member of the Barun Valley trip, Hardie studied Sherpa culture and explored parts of central Nepal. This friendship led to his appointment as deputy leader of the 1955 British team to Kangchenjunga. Today, Norm Hardie remains extremely modest about his part on a monumental climb with three Englishmen that took them in two teams to the summit of this giant among giants — or almost, for they stopped two metres short of the top in deference to the local inhabitants who revere such peaks as the home of the gods. Hardie developed the supplementary oxygen system used on the mountain and the sole surviving set hangs in pride of place in his home. After the Kangchenjunga climb Hardie took off across Nepal on a private escapade that resulted in the widely translated

book “In Highest Nepal.” “I set out from the Kangchenjunga Base camp with three Sherpas and walked west close to the Tibetan border for 28 days until we reached the Everest area. The account of this adventure in the monsoon mist, fills four chapters of my book. Then I lived with Sherpa families for the rest of the rainy season,\ migrating with their yak herds and living on Sherpa food. “A distinguished anthropologist heard of my adventures and followed my route. Haimendorf’s immaculate study of the Sherpa people ’emerged in 1959 called ‘The Sherpas of Nepal.’ It seems I was a little carried away in a few of my sweeping descriptions of marriage customs and the like, so my book has never stood its ground as a serious study. The product I suppose, of a civil engineer dabbling in anthropology. Yet it was a great adventure at a time when most people I met had never seen a European face.”

The story of the New Zealandinspired Himalayan Trust, established in the early 1960 s to improve Sherpa educational and medical facilities, has been well documented by Sir Edmund Hillary. Norm Hardie is a director of this trust, administering New Zealand’s best known grass-roots foreign aid programme. This involvement led to Hardie representing New Zealand in 1974 as an adviser to the Nepalese Government with a view to setting up a framework

for the establishment of the National Park around the Mt Everest (Sagarmatha) region. "Three of us from New Zealand, with a Nepalese forester, had a five-week walk through the area, trying to examine the problem and convince the locals that park protection and management rules would keep some undesirable features from their land. We meant well and we had a large measure of success. “Nepal has few sources of overseas funds and tourism is the main one available to them. We suggested restrictions on building large hotels and the immediate commencement of reafforestation schemes. Such ideas were not wholly adopted by the bureaucracy in Kathmandu, for our ideas did not mirror their desire to let more people into the area.

“As a result of Nepal’s increasing population and a rapidly expanding tourist industry trees are being destroyed at an alarming rate for cooking fuel. Garbage disposal, particularly plastics, is a real problem too. “Fortunately, there is a good

side to the picture as well. Part of the aid to the fledgling park has been to extend education in New Zealand for Nepalis who will eventually return home as park rangers to make improvements in their own system."

Norm Hardie returned to Nepal in 1980 to make an engineering report on how Himalayan Trust buildings were faring. “When the first Trust school was built in 1961, no-one considered the 1980 s,” he says. A number of buildings were constructed, all using untreated timber. Borer is not a great problem though rotten wood from monsoon rain can be serious. Where stone walls were built, the mortar contains no cement, as the transport costs from Kathmandu on porter’s backs would multiply the over-all

cost by five times. Dry stone walls and untreated timber are normal Sherpa building practice so they need a lot of maintenance. Big trees have been used in ground floor construction and such trees are no longer common.

“All Trust members do not agree with me, but I believe we should put up with the extra cost of carrying cement. Constructing concrete floors would give buildings longer life and cleaner working surfaces.”

Tourism and mountain trekking in the Himalaya is now big business. With three decades of experience to look back on, Hardie’s comments on how the Sherpa people are coping with the 1980 s are poignant. “Sherpas have come a long way since I first saw one of their villages in the 19505. Without the Trust’s schools many would not have been able to go on to take medical, flying and park administration exams. Some Sherpas are now in top positions. Through education they are rapidly improving vital standards in areas

such as hygiene and house construction.

- “Above all, in a country of high unemployment, it is good to see Sherpas getting year-round work as trekking guides, with some even owning their own companies. This type of work also keeps them out of the high avalanche death statistics of the 1960-70 S.

“The steady disappearance of the forests is the most serious problem facing Nepal today. Park protection is not handling it with enough authority. Yaks continue to eat planted seedlings to such an extent that the Everest region is rapidly turning into a high altitude desert. My hope is that with more education there will be increased co-operation among the many users of the wood.”

Collaboration with British

Exploration in central Nepal

Tourism one

of few sources

Sherpas have come long way

Yaks eating planted seedlings