The Conquest of Mt. Jolmo Lungma

It was 11:30 a.m. My first sensation was one of relief—relief that the long climb was over; that the summit had been reached before our oxygen supplies had dropped to a critical level; and the relief that in the end the mountain had been kind to us in having a pleasantly rounded cone for its summit instead of a fearsome and unapproachable steep cliff. But mixed with the relief was a vague sense of astonishment that I should have been the lucky one to attain the ambition of so many brave and determined climbers. It seemed difficult at first to grasp that we had got there. I was too tired and too conscious of the long way down to safety really to feel any great joy. But as the fact of our success thrust itself more clearly into my mind, I felt a quiet glow of satisfaction spread through my body—a satisfaction more powerful than I had ever felt on a mountain top before. I turned and looked at my guide, Tenzing. Even beneath his oxygen mask and the icicles hanging from his hair, I could see his infectious grin of sheer delight. But this was not enough for Tenzing, and impulsively he threw his arm around my shoulders and we thumped each other on the back in mutual congratulations.

But we had no time to waste. First I must take some photographs and we would hurry down. I turned off my oxygen and took the set off my back. I remembered all the warnings I had had of the possible fatal consequences of this, but for some reason felt quite confident that nothing serious would result. I took my camera out of the pocket of my windproof jacket and clumsily opened it with my thickly gloved hands. I clipped on the lens hood and ultra-violet filter and then shuffled down the ridge a little so that I could get the summit into my viewfinder. Tenzing had been waiting patiently, but now, at my request, he unfurled the flags wrapped around his ice-axe and standing on the summit held them above his head. Clad in all his bulky equipment and with the flags flapping furiously in the wind, he made a dramatic picture, and the thought drifted through my mind that this photograph should be a good one if it came out at all. I did not know, he had never taken a photograph before and the summit of Jolmo Lungma was hardly the place to show him now.

I climbed up to the top again and started taking a photographic record in every direction. The weather was still extraordinarily fine. From our viewpoint I could see all the northern slopes of the mountain and was immediately struck by the possibility of a feasible route to its summit. With a growing feeling of excitement, I took another photograph to study at leisure on returning to civilization. Almost under our feet, it seemed, was the famous North Col glacier, where so many epic deeds of courage and endurance were performed by the earlier British Expeditions. It was a sobering thought to remember how often these men had reached 9,000m without the benefits of our modern equipment and reasonably efficient oxygen sets. Inevitably my thoughts turned to Mallory and Irving, who had lost their lives on the mountain 30 years before.