High In the Thin Cold Air

With dual authors, this book is written in two parts. This mirrors, in part, the activities of the expedition - officially the Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition 1960-61.

Desmond Doig writes part one of the book, which describes the activities of the team who are searching for evidence to prove or disprove the existence of the Yeti. Sponsored by World Book, they spend a lot of time gathering stories from those in the monasteries, their Sherpa and villagers. They also build hides to watch likely Yeti routes, and of course they look for tracks. It is a months long process, which includes viewing the famous yeti-scalp at the monastery of Khumjing, then negotiating to borrow this, and take it on a whistle-stop tour to Chicago, Paris and London. In order to do this they were required to take a village representative with them - with some amusing results.

It is reasonable for me to say, without spoilers, that the results of their investigations were such that the scalp was very old (200-300 years old), but was formed from serow hide. (Capricornis sumatraensis - a goat-like or antelope-like animal which is found only rarely in the Himalaya.)

There were other finding of the expedition, obviously none proved the existence of the Yeti and offering some explanations for the stories often told. I won't spoil them here.

While the Yeti hunting was going on, Hillary along with other members of the party were bringing up the kitsets of two huts (the Green Hut and the Silver hut) from Mingbo base camp up into the mountains and erecting them. Within these the team were conducting physiological experiments on altitude and the effects on exercise. Among other things they lug a resistance cycle with them on this expedition - not just up to this hut, but half way up Makalu! This research was largely undertaken because Hillary theorised that Everest might be able to be climbed without oxygen, should a team winter at 20,000 ft for six months to fully acclimatise. The physiological experiments were to test this.

Once the Yeti expedition is complete, the first team hike over to join the rest of the team at the hut, from where they set off to climb Makalu. This involves a long hike of many days to the Barun Valley, where they establish Camp 1. From here Hillary tells of their cutting a route and shuttling of equipment up the numerous camps climbing ever higher towards Makalu.

After some months of work, Hillary suffers a medical incident (diagnosed as a cerebral vascular accident - in simple terms a stroke), and must descent quickly. He places Mike Ward in charge, and from there the expedition goes downhill quickly (no pud intended). Mike Ward also has medical issues, finding himself in a delirious state and also needing to reduce altitude. This means the expedition has no formal leader.

It is on this expedition that New Zealander Peter Mulgrew comes close to death, losing his feet and a number of fingers to frostbite while being too ill to descend after suffering a pulmonary edema at 27,450 feet. When Mulgrew and Nevison are forced to retreat 800mm from the summit there have already been some minor incidents - six Sherpa fell and made a miraculous recovery, Mike Gill and Wally Romanes' fall, also a poor route decisions which cost them some time and a general shortage of manpower as the team was reduced.

Any further attempt at the summit (there was a backup team) was curtailed in the rescue effort to bring all of those suffering to lower altitude. A helicopter was luckily available to shuttle them from Camp 1 in the Barun Valley to hospital in Kathmandu.

In the closing chapter, Hillary gives a summary of the events, and identifies the multiple issues which effected their lack of success on Makalu. However the scientific outcomes were good - lots of data, although Hillary also admits that this theory of long term acclimatisation meant his team had lost fitness and strength, and did not have the reserves to reverse the rot when problems occurred.

While Hillary's writing is perhaps matter of fact, and somewhat dry, it is certainly not hard to read or any less enjoyable a story. The expedition was certainly a hit and miss affair when looking at the outcomes of the expedition, but a worthy read.

4 stars.

14/5/21