LITMIR.BIZ

      Despite including seven strong climbers, Tilman’s 1938 Everest expedition got no higher than the Norton and Somervell high point of 28,000 feet. Food became a point of contention among the team members; in the name of austerity Tilman had refused the gift of a crate of champagne from a well-wisher, and listed porridge and soup as luxuries. Noel Odell, in particular, objected to the ration of two pounds per day of flour and lentils after enjoying quails in aspic and chocolates on the 1924 Everest expedition. He blamed the parsimonious diet for the recurrent illness and weakness of the party. Bill Tilman gave a typically sarcastic response to this in Appendix A of his expedition book: ‘I must confess I was surprised to hear any criticism of the food, except from Odell, who has not yet finished criticising the food we ate on Nanda Devi in 1936 and who, in spite of his half-starved condition, succeeded in getting to the top.’¹⁴

      However, Odell did have a point: once again, the British had failed on Everest. Little did they know that their youngest Sherpa, 24-year-old Tenzing Norgay, would finally manage to climb the mountain in 1953 with Edmund Hillary. He was described by the leader as young, keen, strong and very likeable. Shipton had employed him on the 1935 Everest reconnaissance expedition, catching his flashing smile in the employment lines. Nor could they suspect that a British woman, Rebecca Stephens, would climb Everest in 1993; a 13-year-old boy, Jordan Romero, would climb it in 2010; or an 80-year-old Japanese man, Yuichiro Miura, in 2013. Surely, they wouldn’t believe that 234 people would reach the top in a single day in 2012. One of the greatest mysteries about mountains is how they appear to lose their difficulty. As British mountaineer and author Albert Mummery said: ‘It has frequently been noticed that all mountains appear doomed to pass through the three stages: An inaccessible peak – The most difficult ascent in the Alps – An easy day for a lady.’¹⁵ This is not a topic for this book, but it has been addressed at length in at least one other.¹⁶

      Once again, the weather was bad that year so they retreated to the Rongbuk monastery, where they had already noticed that someone had demolished the monument to those who died in 1924 (the carved stone panels on this had been executed by Howard Somervell, the polymath, in an Arts and Crafts style). Tilman and the other climbers questioned the lamas:

      Odell, who as a member of the 1924 expedition was particularly interested, then asked who had destroyed the big cairn erected at the Base Camp … The abbot disclaimed all responsibility on the part of the monastery and suggested that the culprits were the ‘Abominable Snowmen’. This reply staggered me, for though I had an open mind on the matter I was not prepared to hear it treated so lightly in that of all places. I was shocked to think that this apparently jesting reply, accompanied as it was by a chuckle from the abbot and a loud laugh from the assembled monks, indicated a disbelief in the ‘Abominable Snowman’ … Further questioning showed clearly that no jest was intended, and we were told that at least five of these strange creatures lived up near the snout of the glacier and were often heard at night.¹⁷

      Another explanation could be that the monument, which might have been considered to sacrilegiously resemble a Tibetan religious chorten, had indeed been demolished by the lamas.¹⁸

      There was more to see in the Rongbuk monastery. In the innermost shrine, they were shown a piece of rock with ‘the very clear impress of a large human foot’. Odell, a geologist of some standing, could not provide an explanation. Another mysterious footprint!