THE HIGH AND THE HALLOWED

Went to a pretty amazing movie last night. “The High and the Hallowed”. Hosted by Eddie Bauer, the movie highlighted the 1963 American Mt Everest expedition. The expedition was outfitted nearly head to toe by Eddie Bauer.

Arguably the movie tried to tell too many stories, but the central plot was the tension and division within the group as they grappled with competing goals.

The team leader, Norman Dyhrenfurth, had spent 3 years raising money and organizing the expedition. At that point in time, Hillary and Sherpa Tenzig, and later both a Swiss and Chinese team had all been to the summit. No American had yet to summit Everest.

While the goal was to summit, Dyhrenfurth had to balance scarce resources between two factions within his team. To make matters worse, after only a couple of days on the mountain, one of their team, 27 year old Jake Breitenbach, was killed in the ice flow just above base camp. That event changed the tenor and tone of the effort. It became serious, the memory still visibly painful as the men recounted the event from half a century ago.

As described by all the participants 'the team' became two teams competing for time, Sherpa support and a fixed number of oxygen bottles. Dyhrenfurth was faced with choosing to support summiting the mountain via a higher percentage known route or pioneering a new, far riskier gambit.

Essentially the choice was 'first American or first ever'.

The southern col route was the more known route, but very little was known about the far riskier west ridge. During one of their reconnaissance climbs, the ‘west ridgers’ eyed a possible route and were optimistic as they returned to base camp. Only to find that in their absence a decision had been reached to put full support behind the south col route. Friction grew.

Whittaker and Sherpa Gombu were chosen to climb the south col route and they successfully summited on May 1st, 1963. I have been fortunate enough to hear Jim Whittaker describe the summit effort several times in the first person, on film, and I’ve read a couple of accounts in books. The tale never ceases to amaze me. When they descended, the green light was given to west ridge effort.

What transpired next was one of the greatest mountaineering feats of all time. To put things in perspective, and with benefit of 50 years hindsight, some 6000 successful summits of Everest have been made, most via the south col route. Roughly 300 have died trying. In those 50 years there have been only 14 summits via the west ridge. 16 have died trying that route. Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld set out up the unclimbed west ridge.

The plan was for them to go up the west ridge and meet on the summit with two other climbers (Lute Jerstadt and Barry Bishop) who would climb the now 'standard' route. The plan was to descend together.

Both sides struggled. On the eve prior to the summit a fierce storm demolished Hornbein and Unsoelds tent. On the other side of the mountain Bishop and Jerstad had a fire sparked by their stove. Things went downhill with 60 mph winds.

The film is chilling, replaying the radio transmissions from base camp. By this time Unsoeld and Hornbein were technical rock climbing the near vertical face just below the summit and Whittaker is heard advising them to leave themselves an out should they need to reverse course. Fully committed, Hornbein is heard saying they can’t come down. "There are no rappel points, Jim". It was up and over. Do or die.

Jerstad and Bishop reached the summit first from the south side route. They waited, but with time and oxygen running out, they started to descend. The wind was still howling and the wind chill was some 80 degrees below zero. A few hours later Unsoeld and Hornbein made the first successful summit from the west ridge, then headed down the south side in the footsteps of Jerstad and Bishop. It was getting late and they were behind schedule.

Hearing voices above them, Bishop and Jerstad stopped, waiting for the other two climbers. They desperately tried to stay warm while they waited in the growing darkness. None of the 4 climbers had a sleeping bag or tent. Finally reunited, the 4 set out in the darkness but just after midnight they had to stop. At roughly 28,000 feet they huddled and waited for the sun to come up.

Then, a curious thing happened. There are perhaps 5 or 10 days a year when its not blowing on the mountain but on that night the wind quieted down. Dave Hahn has said that even a mild wind would have lowered the wind chill enough to kill all 4, but on that night no wind meant survival. On that date and for years later it remained the highest bivouac ever done.

Then, as the sun rose, they continued down. They had made it.

Bishop would lose all 10 toes from frostbite and Unsoeld would lose 9. Both were carried off the mountain.

Willi Unsoeld died in an avalanche on Mt rainier in 1979.

Barry Bishop died in a car accident in 1994. His son was on the Eddie Bauer sponsored trip last year.

Lute Jerstad died of a heart attack in 1998 while hiking with his grandson in Nepal.

Nawang Gombu, the Sherpa who summited with Whittaker, died in 2011.

Of the summiteers from 50 years ago, only Whittaker and Hornbein remain alive.

Hornbein would later focus on his medical practice and he and dad knew each other being Seattle based doctors. They weren’t close, but had a nodding acquaintance.

Jim Whittaker and his wife Diane witnessed my teams successful dead stick docking of Cambria after our transmission failed during the summer of 2011 coming into the Friday Harbor slip. He was kind enough to pose with Devin and his buddies.

At the end of the movie there were interviews with several notable climbers who commented on the importance of that 1963 expedition. Arguably none more famous than Reinhold Messner and Ed Viesturs.