August 30, 2022 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Brot Coleman tells the harrowing story of the time America reached the highest peak in the world not once, but twice, on their first expedition to it in 1963.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star. And the American
people who search for the Our American Stories podcast go
to the iHeartRadio app, to the Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcast up. Next to story about a
twenty nine thirty two foot tall mountain in Nepal and
(00:32):
the ragtag group of men from across the United States
who decided to climate during one of the most transformative
years in our nation's history nineteen sixty three. Here to
tell the story is brought Oburn, author of The Vast Unknown.
Let's get into the story. I was in the seventh
(01:01):
grade in middle school in Tacoma, Washington, when the students
in our class were summoned to the assembly hall to
listen to a guest speaker. And in walked a man
with a grizzled beard and laser like eyes, and he
looked at all of us, reached down, opened a zipper
(01:22):
of his keelty frame pack and pulled out a bottle
and passed it around the room. It contained his nine
blackened toes that had been amputated in the capital city
of Nepal. And we were horrified and delighted, and at
(01:43):
that point I was hooked. The man was Willie Unsold,
And it turned out that Willie Unsold had led a
life of charity because he was rescued in nineteen forty
nine for making an attempt on a peak in India
by some missionaries, and they turned him on to a
(02:06):
life of service. So I really wanted to follow in
Willie Unsold's footsteps. I joined the Peace Corps. I was
assigned to Nepal, and I learned about the American Everest
Expedition of nineteen sixty three. The United States was really
(02:37):
in a time of tremendous uncertainty. The Cuban Missile Crisis
was under way, where the Soviets were attempting to deliver
nuclear armed missiles to Cuba. The civil rights movement was
ramping up, and in nineteen fifty eight, just a few
years earlier, the Soviets had launched a basketball size saddle
(03:00):
named spout Nick, and the beat beat beat of spout
Nick became something of a soundtrack for the suspicion that
our adversaries, the Soviets, we're going to take the high
road and claim supremacy in the space race. So America
(03:21):
was behind the eight ball and inspired President John F. Kennedy,
in his famous Moon speech in Houston in nineteen sixty
to declare that the United States would place a man
on the Moon by the end of the decade. Why
some say the moon, Why choose this as our goal?
(03:44):
And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain?
Why thirty five years ago by the Atlantic? Why does
Rice play Texas, we choose to go to the moon.
We choose to go to the Moon and dis decay
and do the other thing. Not because they are easy,
but because they are hard. Because that goal, they'll serve
(04:09):
to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.
And in that speech he invoked the great British climber
George Mallory, who was lost on Everest headed for the
summit many years ago. The great British explorer George Mallory,
(04:30):
who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why
did he want to climate? He said, because it is there. Well,
space is there, and we're going to climate. It was
Mallory's spirit of reaching into the vast unknown that inspired
(04:53):
Kennedy and the Americans to want to take on a
task as daunting and uncertain as climbing Mount Everest. In
nineteen forty nine, India became independent from Britain, and so
(05:13):
the British were trying to maintain some kind of colonial
presence around the world. They'd lost India, but maybe they
could capture Everest. The British and the Swiss had long
had a proprietary interest in mountains of the world. The
British were the primary climbers in the Alps of Switzerland
(05:37):
and Italy, and they were guided by the Swiss. So
the Swiss were also quite interested in reaching the top,
and in fact, in nineteen fifty two, a year before
the British, the Swiss were able to stage two expeditions
to the mountain. They came very close to the summit,
(05:57):
but they didn't reach it, and so an opportunit tunity
opened up for the British in nineteen fifty three. Now,
one gentleman who was on the Swiss expedition in nineteen
fifty two, he was tweaked by this achievement of the British.
He had long assumed that the Swiss would make it
(06:17):
to the top. He was a Swiss Austrian himself. His
name was Norman dern First, except that Norman dern Firth's parents,
who were great explorers and mappers and climbers of the
Himalayas in the early nineteen hundreds, they were concerned about
the development of Nazism in Europe. Norman's mother, Hetty, was
(06:41):
half Jewish, so when Norman was a teenager in nineteen
thirty eight, he and his mother emigrated to the United States.
And while Norman was in the US, he dreamed that
perhaps American the people of his new country could stage
(07:02):
an expedition to Everest. And you're listening to Brott Coburn
tell the story of the ragtag group of men from
across this country who decided to climb Mount Everest. When
we come back, more of this remarkable story on our
American stories, Folks, if you love the stories we tell
(07:32):
about this great country, and especially the stories of America's
rich past, know that all of our stories about American history,
from war to innovation, culture and faith, are brought to
us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place
where students study all the things that are beautiful in
life and all the things that are good in life.
And if you can't cut to Hillsdale. Hillsdale will come
(07:52):
to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go
to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more. And we continue
with our American stories and the story of the first
(08:13):
American ascent of the world's highest mountain, count Everest. When
we last left off, Brought Coburn, author of The Vast Unknown,
was telling us about the state of the world in
nineteen sixty three. We were in the midst of the
Cold War. Intensions were high, however, there was a growing
desire to explore the vast Unknown. One place that was
(08:34):
unknown to Americans was space. The other the summit of Everest,
and one European immigrant to this great country had a
desire to change that. His name was Norman Derenfirth. Let's
get back to the story. Perhaps one of the biggest
challenges of Everest is just getting to the base of
(08:55):
the mountain. There are no roads in eastern Nepal. Getting
there required an eighteen day trek up and down a
vertical equivalent of Everest itself just to get to base camp.
And once they arrived at base camp, the daunting challenge
that presented itself right away is the treacherous Komboo ice Fall,
(09:20):
which is a moving river of apartment house sized blocks
of ice that can collapse and crush climbers in a second.
And in fact, by nineteen fifty three, after tenzing, Norgay
and ed Hillary climbed to the top twice as many
climbers had died on the mountain as had reached the top.
(09:53):
But Norman Derenfirth, now an American, had been on Everest
in nineteen fifty two, and he really had a grass
of the challenges that they would face. He had been
high on the mountain. He knew it was possible to
reach the top, and he knew it would be especially
possible for young, tough, strong Americans to be able to
reach it as well. Norman knew that opportunity, excellence, perseverance,
(10:19):
and success were really at the heart of the American dream.
Perhaps there could be a core of people who were
driven to climb mountains, just as they were in Europe.
And so he turned to the Tetons of Wyoming, and
there he ran into a core of college students really
(10:40):
who were exemplified by the young men Barry Corbett and
Jake brighton Bach. These were Dartmouth students who every summer
used to drive their battered nineteen forty nine Hudson across
the US before the freeways were installed and knockoff new
(11:01):
roots up the peaks in the Tetons, and Norman knew
that these guys were at least the beginning of forming
a team consisting of the right stuff. In fact, Barry
and Jake in particular were referred to as SABS, or
supremely able bodied, and there were other Tetons climbers. Dick Emerson, sociologist,
(11:28):
was a guide during the summers in the Tetons. Willie unsold,
so he recruited these gentlemen, and he also went out
to the Pacific Northwest, where one of the legends, Jim Whittaker,
known as Big Jim Whittaker, had climbed Mount Rainier more
than a hundred times, and he and his twin brother
(11:51):
were recruited to the expedition. They also suggested that a
sherpa who was a nephew of tens Norgay named Nawang
Goombu also be included on the expedition. He had carried
heavy loads to very high elevation, and Norman knew that
he would need some science to go along with the expedition.
(12:14):
The National Geographic Society the National Science Foundation the US
in particular would want to learn more about the glaciology
of the mountain, so they took on a geologist named
Maynard Miller, and they took on Jim Lester, a psychologist
from southern California. Barry Bishop of the National Geographic Society
(12:37):
would be the media connection, and Lute Jerstad, a hot
shot guide and climber from Oregon, would definitely be a
strong climber for the expedition. Lute used to surprise his
guided clients on Mount Rainier when they reached the summit
of the fourteen thousand foot peak, he would open up
(12:59):
his rucksac and pull out an entire watermelon. But experience
alone isn't quite enough for a mountain as big and
as far away and distant and isolated as Everest, so
he was also looking for some character attributes, such as
maturity and ability to respond to extremely difficult situations, and
(13:26):
a willingness to face risk because there was a likelihood
that one or more of the members of his team
would not return. His biggest challenge at that point was
convincing sponsors and the government of the US into endorsing
(13:51):
and hopefully funding an expedition to the mountain. Why would
anyone in America really care about Everest? Everest was a
geological oddity, It was a long way from anywhere that
mattered to Americans, and it had little to offer sponsors
who were looking for productive applications in technology or defense. Now,
(14:20):
in Europe, politics was closely entwined with athletics, not like
in the US, and the Soviets had budgeted very large
amounts to their athletic teams to essentially show that communism
was the best form of government. But Americans were left
(14:41):
with very little support. When Norman Dernforth approached the US
government and tried to get a meeting with President Kennedy,
they rebuffed him. In a sense, America was a little
bit afraid failure would be a big embarrassed. It would
be an embarrassment not only in the context of athletics
(15:04):
and climbing relative to Europe and the rest of the world,
but in an era when we were striving to solve
our domestic problems. It was considered to be dangerous. America
had more to lose than it had to gain. But
Norman and these other young idealistic climbers knew a place
(15:27):
like Everest was a venue where they could project their dreams.
Gradually they overcame that resistance and they realized that, of course,
if America could place a man on the Moon by
the end of the decade, why shouldn't they be able
to put a human on top of the world's highest point.
(15:56):
And it was at the National Geographic Society that they
decided to take on this project. Of course, they knew
that one of the key outputs from their point of
view would be media, photographs, movies, and so on. Norman
Derenforth was a filmmaker. He'd had a television program and
(16:17):
he was a director of one of the film schools
at the University of Southern California, and he jumped at
the possibility of being able to document this expedition for
the Americans. And we've been listening to Brott Coburn, author
of The Vast Unknown, and by the way, what a
(16:40):
story he's telling. As Norman Derrenforth was assembling this team,
he knew that experience wasn't enough. He was looking, he said,
for maturity, the ability to confront catastrophe, and the appetite
for risk and then hoping for an endorsement from either
a corporate sponsor or government sponsor. The National Geographic Society
(17:03):
stepped up. What was the upside media, folks, great stories,
great pictures and great film. When we come back, more
of the remarkable story of America's first team to scale
moun evers here on our American stories and we continue
(18:09):
with our American stories and the story of the first
American ascent of Mount Everest. When we last left off,
brought Colburn, author of The Vast Unknown, was telling us
about the creation of Norman Derenferth's team that he put
together to climb the mountain, consisting of climbers from the
Titans and Pacific. Let's pick up we're brought left off.
(18:34):
Norman had his hands full in trying to manage this
odd collection of characters who had come together in a single,
unified goal. Because of all the funding that was at stake,
Norman had essentially guaranteed the National Geographic Society that they
(18:56):
would deliver the summit. And the easiest way to deliver
Mount Everest in a sense, was to climate by the
route that had already been climbed by the British and
the Swiss. But some tensions began to develop. There was
(19:16):
a faction consisting mainly of climbers from the Tetons who
wondered if it might just be possible to pull off
a new route on Everest, something that would impress even
the great European climbers or the Swiss. It just might
be possible to forge a new route up the west
(19:39):
ridge of Everest. Many of the other members of the
expedition in Norman felt that applying too much attention to
this new route on the west Ridge could jeopardize their
chance of bringing home the summit. And one of the
big problems that they recognized was that if the west
ridge of Ever could be climbed, they all knew that
(20:04):
those climbers would not be able to descend by the
same route for various technical reasons and the shape of
the rock that they would be descending. Those climbers would
have to descend by the standard south coal route. In
other words, they would have to descend by route they
had never seen. And so Norman decided, after a lot
(20:35):
of discussion and bickering, that they would climb the easy
route up Mount Everest, if you want to call it that,
and if there was time and supplies and material and
supplemental oxygen remaining after that climb, then the west Ridge
faction would have a shot by their daring new route.
(21:05):
Now Here they are at base camp facing the daunting
Kumboo ice fall, and they didn't have exactly a plan
because there were so many variables at that point. Which
climbers would be strong, which would be sick or suffering
from altitude sickness, What would the weather conditions bring them?
(21:28):
There was a lot of uncertainty, but Norman Derenforth assigned
Big Jim Whitaker and Noan Gombo to be the first
party to climb the mountain via the standard south coal route.
On the second day of climbing, Jake brighton Bach and
(21:51):
Dick Pownell and Gil Roberts and Asherpa were climbing through
the Komboo ice fall and Jake ascended a vertical sheet
of ice on the far side of a crevass, and
as he was approaching the top, the whole face of
this glacier broke off and collapsed. Jake was crushed beneath
(22:17):
thirty tons of ice. So the team returned to base
camp and they asked the question should they continue with
the climb, and it was Jake's best friend, Barry Corbett,
who said, why would we not climb when that is
(22:38):
exactly what Jake had dedicated his life too. We'll climb
the mountain, not without Jake, but for Jake. So they
decided to continue, and on May feet, nineteen sixty three,
Big Jim Whittaker and Naombo were able to plant the
(22:59):
Flower of the United States on the Summit of Everest.
But it wasn't what they found on the summit that
was interesting. It's what they didn't find. They were half
expecting to find the bust of Chairman Mao that the
(23:21):
Chinese said they had left on the summit three years earlier,
in nineteen sixty, but they climb that the Chinese claim
of Everest in nineteen sixty has been disputed. They arrived
at the summit at four o'clock in the morning in
complete darkness and had no photographic evidence of their climb,
(23:41):
and so whether they made it to the summit or
not is still being disputed, but it underscores what was
at stake geo politically. But at least the Americans had
made it. They'd reached the top, and so when Big
Jim Whittaker and Nan Goombo returned to base camp. It
was now the turn for the west Ridge contingent, except
(24:08):
many of the Sherpes and porters had already run off
down valley, and it wasn't clear whether there would be
enough supplies to be able to support another try on
the mountain. Norman and some of the others said, we've
already reached the top, why do we have to do
it again? But the west Ridge faction was persistent, and
(24:28):
they knew that it would put a gigantic feather in
the cap of the United States if they could even
make a serious attempt by that daunting new route. So
in late May, with diminished supplies, a core of seven
climbers and as many sherpes took off headed for the
(24:52):
West Ridge of Everest, and they came up onto the
West Shoulder and they were able to establish camp for
west and then they continued up to the base of
the very steep part of the west Ridge and established
a camp at twenty two thousand feet, And that evening
Willie Unsold walked out of the tent to look ten
(25:15):
thousand feet down to the Wrong Book Glacier in Tibet
and over the other side of the ridge six thousand
feet down to the western coom below him, and he
was wondering why the snow in front of him seemed
so scoured. But they would find out that night when
they were in their tents that they had pitched their
(25:37):
tents in what is arguably one of the windiest places
in the world, and near hurricane force winds that night
elevated their tents and tumbled them sixty feet down slope,
and they came to rest perch just above the gigantic
drop down to the Wrong Book Glacier in Tibet. They
(25:58):
regathered themselves the next day and realized that continuing with
their West Ridge attempt would be mistaken. But Tom Hornbyin
stayed up late that night calculating, and he calculated that
if they reduced their summit team from three to only
(26:20):
two members, and if they established only one higher camp
rather than two, they just might be able to pull
it off. And at the same time, there was another
American one hundred miles away, one hundred miles away, almost
directly straight up, who provided Tom with some inspiration. Astronaut
(26:48):
Gordon Cooper of the final flight of the Mercury mission
was orbiting the Earth and flew directly over the Himalayas.
That evening, another American who was pushing his way into
the Vast Unknown, and you've been listening to brought Cockburn
(27:09):
tell a heck of a story about the first American
team to scale Everst and they succeeded. It was that
western slope. What would happen next when we return more
of brought Cockburn on our American stories, And we continue
(27:38):
with our American stories in the final portion of our
story on the first American ascent of Mount Everest, as
told by Brot Coburn, author of the fantastic book The
Vast Unknown. Pick it up at your local bookstore, Amazon,
or wherever you buy your books. When we last left off,
Americans had finally planted their flag on the summit of
(28:01):
Mount Everest by taking the so called easy route. However,
another group of climbers in the group wanted to do
something truly unique climbed the unclimbed west ridge of the mountain.
Not all of them could do it, though, and some
had to turn back. Let's return to the story here
again is brought Ober. The next day, the remaining team
(28:27):
gathered their supplies and materials and took off, actually skirting
the north side of Everest into Tibet and found their
way up what would be called the Hornbeye cool War
and Willie Unsold and Tom Hornbyne established their high camp
at twenty seven thousand feet on a ledge that was
(28:50):
only eighteen inches wide, and Barry Corbett and Dick Emerson
and the Sherpes descended, leaving those two gentlemen along. The
next morning, Willie unsolding Tom Hornbine found their way, after
great difficulty in problems with their supplemental oxygen, up to
(29:14):
the crest of the West Ridge, and there they looked
across at the south summit of Everest and at the
fifth highest peak, loads which was now below them in elevation,
and they were able to find a route up to
the summit of Everest, and on May twenty second they
planted their flag on the top. It was nearly six
(29:38):
pm and they turned and realized they would have to
find their way down the Southeast Ridge, down a route
they had never seen, with darkness fast approaching. But they
saw something in the foreground that gave them a little
bit of hope. There were footprints in the snow and
(30:00):
in that wind swept environment, any footprints would be covered
over very quickly. So they realized that Lutjerstad from Oregon
and Barry Bishop of the National Geographic Society must have
come up to the summit sometime before them, and in fact,
Lute and Barry had time their ascent in order to
be able to try to intersect with Willie Unsold and
(30:22):
Tom Hornbein, but they were three hours ahead of them
and had already descended. And so as Tom and Willie
descended down the southeast Ridge into darkness, they could no
longer find their way, and randomly, hopelessly, might say, Willie
(30:52):
Unsold started yodeling into the darkness, as he was he
was apt to do, and amazing shouts and yodels came
back in return, because Barry Bishop and Lutjerstad had also
been benighted on the southeast Ridge at about twenty seven
and a half thousand feet just below them, and so
(31:16):
using yodel echolocation, Willie was able to guide himself and
Tom down to where Loot and Barry were huddled on
the southeast ridge, and the four of them converged and
sat down to die. As Lute Jerstad later wrote, we
(31:48):
saw each other but could not see. We felt each other,
but did not feel. We knew each other was safe,
but we knew nothing. Man vanished into nothingness, but in
that nothingness lay the strength and dignity which man's soul
is capable of. And as they stared into the darkness,
(32:13):
they weren't aware of the American that was only a
hundred miles away. A Jesuit priest in Kopmandu who was
the headmaster of a private school there and also a
well known Ham radio operator. He had been listening to
the radio dispatches from base camp, and when he'd learned
that these four gentlemen were stranded on one of the
(32:37):
highest bivouacs in history, on the side of Mount Everest,
he gathered together the priests of the school, and they
spent the night kneeling in prayer, praying that the winds
on Everest would be calm, and miraculously, the winds on
(32:57):
Everest were calm. They all lived and were safe from
base camp. Barry, Bishop and Willie Unsold had to be
carried to a waiting helicopter at a village at twelve
(33:19):
thousand feet down valley, and as they stuffed Barry Bishop
and Willie Unsold into the helicopter. The rest of the
team gathered for a final team portrait, the last portrait
taken of the team when they were all together, all
of them except Jake Brighton back, who was left on
(33:42):
the mountain. The team walked the eighteen days back to Kopmandu.
They had lost an aggregate of five hundred pounds of
body weight in the expedition, and when they neared the
(34:03):
edge of the Comandu Valley, they were greeted by the
US ambassador and his wife and ministers from the Nepal government,
who were thrilled that these Americans had reached the summit.
And when they returned to the US, they were honored
in the Rose Garden of the White House by President
(34:23):
John F. Kennedy, who awarded them all the National Geographic
Hubbard Medal, which is normally given only to individuals, but
in this case to all the members of the expedition,
including five Sherpas who had also been brought to the US.
(34:46):
Since nineteen sixty three, the process of climbing Mount Evers
has been completely transformed. More than four thousand people have
reached the summit as if two twenty one in six
thousand individual ascents or climbs, and it's become commercialized and
helicopter assisted business oriented enterprise. Really. Doctor David Schlim, who
(35:12):
started a clinic near the base of Mount Everest, pointed
out that nowadays it's as if those going to Everest
don't really want to climb it, they want to have
climbed it. The mountain has even become the venue for
what one climber calls splat sports, parachuting, hand gliding, wingsuit diving,
(35:34):
extreme skiing, snowboarding, and so on. So what did all
this mean? What did Evers mean really? For the Americans?
The mountain became the venue where American climbers were called
upon to exhibit some of our basic human values diligence, persistence, teamwork,
(35:58):
and also compromise. But there was something more individual at
stake also for these climbers, and that was friendship, a
shared communion on the mountain, the brotherhood of the rope.
And specifically it meant a lot for America, as encapsulated
by President John F. Kennedy, who was inspired to initiate
(36:23):
a physical fitness craze that took over America that included
fifty mile hikes and so it appears that the meaning
of the expedition has radiated outward in unexpected ways. One
climber said that the best journeys answer questions you didn't
(36:46):
even think to ask. But maybe it comes down to spirit.
That was really what united the members of the sixty
three expedition a half century ago. This spirit, incarnated in
a handful of tough men, coincided with the aspirations of
a still young nation. From competing objectives and differing opinions,
(37:12):
they forged compromises while suspending personal desires for the sake
of common goals. With supreme effort, fortified by dreams and
bonded by cooperation, America and its mountaineers climbed to the
hilltop that President Kennedy spoke of, and there, for at
(37:36):
least a moment, they found greatness and a terrific job
on the editing and storytelling by Monty Montgomery and his
special thanks. It brought Coburn, whose book The Best Unknown
is available at Local Bookstories, at Amazon or wherever you
buy your books, a terrific story about so many things,
(37:59):
included the American spirit. The first group of Americans to
scale Mount Everest here on our American story
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star. And the American
people who search for the Our American Stories podcast go
to the iHeartRadio app, to the Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcast up. Next to story about a
twenty nine thirty two foot tall mountain in Nepal and
(00:32):
the ragtag group of men from across the United States
who decided to climate during one of the most transformative
years in our nation's history nineteen sixty three. Here to
tell the story is brought Oburn, author of The Vast Unknown.
Let's get into the story. I was in the seventh
(01:01):
grade in middle school in Tacoma, Washington, when the students
in our class were summoned to the assembly hall to
listen to a guest speaker. And in walked a man
with a grizzled beard and laser like eyes, and he
looked at all of us, reached down, opened a zipper
(01:22):
of his keelty frame pack and pulled out a bottle
and passed it around the room. It contained his nine
blackened toes that had been amputated in the capital city
of Nepal. And we were horrified and delighted, and at
(01:43):
that point I was hooked. The man was Willie Unsold,
And it turned out that Willie Unsold had led a
life of charity because he was rescued in nineteen forty
nine for making an attempt on a peak in India
by some missionaries, and they turned him on to a
(02:06):
life of service. So I really wanted to follow in
Willie Unsold's footsteps. I joined the Peace Corps. I was
assigned to Nepal, and I learned about the American Everest
Expedition of nineteen sixty three. The United States was really
(02:37):
in a time of tremendous uncertainty. The Cuban Missile Crisis
was under way, where the Soviets were attempting to deliver
nuclear armed missiles to Cuba. The civil rights movement was
ramping up, and in nineteen fifty eight, just a few
years earlier, the Soviets had launched a basketball size saddle
(03:00):
named spout Nick, and the beat beat beat of spout
Nick became something of a soundtrack for the suspicion that
our adversaries, the Soviets, we're going to take the high
road and claim supremacy in the space race. So America
(03:21):
was behind the eight ball and inspired President John F. Kennedy,
in his famous Moon speech in Houston in nineteen sixty
to declare that the United States would place a man
on the Moon by the end of the decade. Why
some say the moon, Why choose this as our goal?
(03:44):
And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain?
Why thirty five years ago by the Atlantic? Why does
Rice play Texas, we choose to go to the moon.
We choose to go to the Moon and dis decay
and do the other thing. Not because they are easy,
but because they are hard. Because that goal, they'll serve
(04:09):
to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.
And in that speech he invoked the great British climber
George Mallory, who was lost on Everest headed for the
summit many years ago. The great British explorer George Mallory,
(04:30):
who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why
did he want to climate? He said, because it is there. Well,
space is there, and we're going to climate. It was
Mallory's spirit of reaching into the vast unknown that inspired
(04:53):
Kennedy and the Americans to want to take on a
task as daunting and uncertain as climbing Mount Everest. In
nineteen forty nine, India became independent from Britain, and so
(05:13):
the British were trying to maintain some kind of colonial
presence around the world. They'd lost India, but maybe they
could capture Everest. The British and the Swiss had long
had a proprietary interest in mountains of the world. The
British were the primary climbers in the Alps of Switzerland
(05:37):
and Italy, and they were guided by the Swiss. So
the Swiss were also quite interested in reaching the top,
and in fact, in nineteen fifty two, a year before
the British, the Swiss were able to stage two expeditions
to the mountain. They came very close to the summit,
(05:57):
but they didn't reach it, and so an opportunit tunity
opened up for the British in nineteen fifty three. Now,
one gentleman who was on the Swiss expedition in nineteen
fifty two, he was tweaked by this achievement of the British.
He had long assumed that the Swiss would make it
(06:17):
to the top. He was a Swiss Austrian himself. His
name was Norman dern First, except that Norman dern Firth's parents,
who were great explorers and mappers and climbers of the
Himalayas in the early nineteen hundreds, they were concerned about
the development of Nazism in Europe. Norman's mother, Hetty, was
(06:41):
half Jewish, so when Norman was a teenager in nineteen
thirty eight, he and his mother emigrated to the United States.
And while Norman was in the US, he dreamed that
perhaps American the people of his new country could stage
(07:02):
an expedition to Everest. And you're listening to Brott Coburn
tell the story of the ragtag group of men from
across this country who decided to climb Mount Everest. When
we come back, more of this remarkable story on our
American stories, Folks, if you love the stories we tell
(07:32):
about this great country, and especially the stories of America's
rich past, know that all of our stories about American history,
from war to innovation, culture and faith, are brought to
us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place
where students study all the things that are beautiful in
life and all the things that are good in life.
And if you can't cut to Hillsdale. Hillsdale will come
(07:52):
to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go
to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more. And we continue
with our American stories and the story of the first
(08:13):
American ascent of the world's highest mountain, count Everest. When
we last left off, Brought Coburn, author of The Vast Unknown,
was telling us about the state of the world in
nineteen sixty three. We were in the midst of the
Cold War. Intensions were high, however, there was a growing
desire to explore the vast Unknown. One place that was
(08:34):
unknown to Americans was space. The other the summit of Everest,
and one European immigrant to this great country had a
desire to change that. His name was Norman Derenfirth. Let's
get back to the story. Perhaps one of the biggest
challenges of Everest is just getting to the base of
(08:55):
the mountain. There are no roads in eastern Nepal. Getting
there required an eighteen day trek up and down a
vertical equivalent of Everest itself just to get to base camp.
And once they arrived at base camp, the daunting challenge
that presented itself right away is the treacherous Komboo ice Fall,
(09:20):
which is a moving river of apartment house sized blocks
of ice that can collapse and crush climbers in a second.
And in fact, by nineteen fifty three, after tenzing, Norgay
and ed Hillary climbed to the top twice as many
climbers had died on the mountain as had reached the top.
(09:53):
But Norman Derenfirth, now an American, had been on Everest
in nineteen fifty two, and he really had a grass
of the challenges that they would face. He had been
high on the mountain. He knew it was possible to
reach the top, and he knew it would be especially
possible for young, tough, strong Americans to be able to
reach it as well. Norman knew that opportunity, excellence, perseverance,
(10:19):
and success were really at the heart of the American dream.
Perhaps there could be a core of people who were
driven to climb mountains, just as they were in Europe.
And so he turned to the Tetons of Wyoming, and
there he ran into a core of college students really
(10:40):
who were exemplified by the young men Barry Corbett and
Jake brighton Bach. These were Dartmouth students who every summer
used to drive their battered nineteen forty nine Hudson across
the US before the freeways were installed and knockoff new
(11:01):
roots up the peaks in the Tetons, and Norman knew
that these guys were at least the beginning of forming
a team consisting of the right stuff. In fact, Barry
and Jake in particular were referred to as SABS, or
supremely able bodied, and there were other Tetons climbers. Dick Emerson, sociologist,
(11:28):
was a guide during the summers in the Tetons. Willie unsold,
so he recruited these gentlemen, and he also went out
to the Pacific Northwest, where one of the legends, Jim Whittaker,
known as Big Jim Whittaker, had climbed Mount Rainier more
than a hundred times, and he and his twin brother
(11:51):
were recruited to the expedition. They also suggested that a
sherpa who was a nephew of tens Norgay named Nawang
Goombu also be included on the expedition. He had carried
heavy loads to very high elevation, and Norman knew that
he would need some science to go along with the expedition.
(12:14):
The National Geographic Society the National Science Foundation the US
in particular would want to learn more about the glaciology
of the mountain, so they took on a geologist named
Maynard Miller, and they took on Jim Lester, a psychologist
from southern California. Barry Bishop of the National Geographic Society
(12:37):
would be the media connection, and Lute Jerstad, a hot
shot guide and climber from Oregon, would definitely be a
strong climber for the expedition. Lute used to surprise his
guided clients on Mount Rainier when they reached the summit
of the fourteen thousand foot peak, he would open up
(12:59):
his rucksac and pull out an entire watermelon. But experience
alone isn't quite enough for a mountain as big and
as far away and distant and isolated as Everest, so
he was also looking for some character attributes, such as
maturity and ability to respond to extremely difficult situations, and
(13:26):
a willingness to face risk because there was a likelihood
that one or more of the members of his team
would not return. His biggest challenge at that point was
convincing sponsors and the government of the US into endorsing
(13:51):
and hopefully funding an expedition to the mountain. Why would
anyone in America really care about Everest? Everest was a
geological oddity, It was a long way from anywhere that
mattered to Americans, and it had little to offer sponsors
who were looking for productive applications in technology or defense. Now,
(14:20):
in Europe, politics was closely entwined with athletics, not like
in the US, and the Soviets had budgeted very large
amounts to their athletic teams to essentially show that communism
was the best form of government. But Americans were left
(14:41):
with very little support. When Norman Dernforth approached the US
government and tried to get a meeting with President Kennedy,
they rebuffed him. In a sense, America was a little
bit afraid failure would be a big embarrassed. It would
be an embarrassment not only in the context of athletics
(15:04):
and climbing relative to Europe and the rest of the world,
but in an era when we were striving to solve
our domestic problems. It was considered to be dangerous. America
had more to lose than it had to gain. But
Norman and these other young idealistic climbers knew a place
(15:27):
like Everest was a venue where they could project their dreams.
Gradually they overcame that resistance and they realized that, of course,
if America could place a man on the Moon by
the end of the decade, why shouldn't they be able
to put a human on top of the world's highest point.
(15:56):
And it was at the National Geographic Society that they
decided to take on this project. Of course, they knew
that one of the key outputs from their point of
view would be media, photographs, movies, and so on. Norman
Derenforth was a filmmaker. He'd had a television program and
(16:17):
he was a director of one of the film schools
at the University of Southern California, and he jumped at
the possibility of being able to document this expedition for
the Americans. And we've been listening to Brott Coburn, author
of The Vast Unknown, and by the way, what a
(16:40):
story he's telling. As Norman Derrenforth was assembling this team,
he knew that experience wasn't enough. He was looking, he said,
for maturity, the ability to confront catastrophe, and the appetite
for risk and then hoping for an endorsement from either
a corporate sponsor or government sponsor. The National Geographic Society
(17:03):
stepped up. What was the upside media, folks, great stories,
great pictures and great film. When we come back, more
of the remarkable story of America's first team to scale
moun evers here on our American stories and we continue
(18:09):
with our American stories and the story of the first
American ascent of Mount Everest. When we last left off,
brought Colburn, author of The Vast Unknown, was telling us
about the creation of Norman Derenferth's team that he put
together to climb the mountain, consisting of climbers from the
Titans and Pacific. Let's pick up we're brought left off.
(18:34):
Norman had his hands full in trying to manage this
odd collection of characters who had come together in a single,
unified goal. Because of all the funding that was at stake,
Norman had essentially guaranteed the National Geographic Society that they
(18:56):
would deliver the summit. And the easiest way to deliver
Mount Everest in a sense, was to climate by the
route that had already been climbed by the British and
the Swiss. But some tensions began to develop. There was
(19:16):
a faction consisting mainly of climbers from the Tetons who
wondered if it might just be possible to pull off
a new route on Everest, something that would impress even
the great European climbers or the Swiss. It just might
be possible to forge a new route up the west
(19:39):
ridge of Everest. Many of the other members of the
expedition in Norman felt that applying too much attention to
this new route on the west Ridge could jeopardize their
chance of bringing home the summit. And one of the
big problems that they recognized was that if the west
ridge of Ever could be climbed, they all knew that
(20:04):
those climbers would not be able to descend by the
same route for various technical reasons and the shape of
the rock that they would be descending. Those climbers would
have to descend by the standard south coal route. In
other words, they would have to descend by route they
had never seen. And so Norman decided, after a lot
(20:35):
of discussion and bickering, that they would climb the easy
route up Mount Everest, if you want to call it that,
and if there was time and supplies and material and
supplemental oxygen remaining after that climb, then the west Ridge
faction would have a shot by their daring new route.
(21:05):
Now Here they are at base camp facing the daunting
Kumboo ice fall, and they didn't have exactly a plan
because there were so many variables at that point. Which
climbers would be strong, which would be sick or suffering
from altitude sickness, What would the weather conditions bring them?
(21:28):
There was a lot of uncertainty, but Norman Derenforth assigned
Big Jim Whitaker and Noan Gombo to be the first
party to climb the mountain via the standard south coal route.
On the second day of climbing, Jake brighton Bach and
(21:51):
Dick Pownell and Gil Roberts and Asherpa were climbing through
the Komboo ice fall and Jake ascended a vertical sheet
of ice on the far side of a crevass, and
as he was approaching the top, the whole face of
this glacier broke off and collapsed. Jake was crushed beneath
(22:17):
thirty tons of ice. So the team returned to base
camp and they asked the question should they continue with
the climb, and it was Jake's best friend, Barry Corbett,
who said, why would we not climb when that is
(22:38):
exactly what Jake had dedicated his life too. We'll climb
the mountain, not without Jake, but for Jake. So they
decided to continue, and on May feet, nineteen sixty three,
Big Jim Whittaker and Naombo were able to plant the
(22:59):
Flower of the United States on the Summit of Everest.
But it wasn't what they found on the summit that
was interesting. It's what they didn't find. They were half
expecting to find the bust of Chairman Mao that the
(23:21):
Chinese said they had left on the summit three years earlier,
in nineteen sixty, but they climb that the Chinese claim
of Everest in nineteen sixty has been disputed. They arrived
at the summit at four o'clock in the morning in
complete darkness and had no photographic evidence of their climb,
(23:41):
and so whether they made it to the summit or
not is still being disputed, but it underscores what was
at stake geo politically. But at least the Americans had
made it. They'd reached the top, and so when Big
Jim Whittaker and Nan Goombo returned to base camp. It
was now the turn for the west Ridge contingent, except
(24:08):
many of the Sherpes and porters had already run off
down valley, and it wasn't clear whether there would be
enough supplies to be able to support another try on
the mountain. Norman and some of the others said, we've
already reached the top, why do we have to do
it again? But the west Ridge faction was persistent, and
(24:28):
they knew that it would put a gigantic feather in
the cap of the United States if they could even
make a serious attempt by that daunting new route. So
in late May, with diminished supplies, a core of seven
climbers and as many sherpes took off headed for the
(24:52):
West Ridge of Everest, and they came up onto the
West Shoulder and they were able to establish camp for
west and then they continued up to the base of
the very steep part of the west Ridge and established
a camp at twenty two thousand feet, And that evening
Willie Unsold walked out of the tent to look ten
(25:15):
thousand feet down to the Wrong Book Glacier in Tibet
and over the other side of the ridge six thousand
feet down to the western coom below him, and he
was wondering why the snow in front of him seemed
so scoured. But they would find out that night when
they were in their tents that they had pitched their
(25:37):
tents in what is arguably one of the windiest places
in the world, and near hurricane force winds that night
elevated their tents and tumbled them sixty feet down slope,
and they came to rest perch just above the gigantic
drop down to the Wrong Book Glacier in Tibet. They
(25:58):
regathered themselves the next day and realized that continuing with
their West Ridge attempt would be mistaken. But Tom Hornbyin
stayed up late that night calculating, and he calculated that
if they reduced their summit team from three to only
(26:20):
two members, and if they established only one higher camp
rather than two, they just might be able to pull
it off. And at the same time, there was another
American one hundred miles away, one hundred miles away, almost
directly straight up, who provided Tom with some inspiration. Astronaut
(26:48):
Gordon Cooper of the final flight of the Mercury mission
was orbiting the Earth and flew directly over the Himalayas.
That evening, another American who was pushing his way into
the Vast Unknown, and you've been listening to brought Cockburn
(27:09):
tell a heck of a story about the first American
team to scale Everst and they succeeded. It was that
western slope. What would happen next when we return more
of brought Cockburn on our American stories, And we continue
(27:38):
with our American stories in the final portion of our
story on the first American ascent of Mount Everest, as
told by Brot Coburn, author of the fantastic book The
Vast Unknown. Pick it up at your local bookstore, Amazon,
or wherever you buy your books. When we last left off,
Americans had finally planted their flag on the summit of
(28:01):
Mount Everest by taking the so called easy route. However,
another group of climbers in the group wanted to do
something truly unique climbed the unclimbed west ridge of the mountain.
Not all of them could do it, though, and some
had to turn back. Let's return to the story here
again is brought Ober. The next day, the remaining team
(28:27):
gathered their supplies and materials and took off, actually skirting
the north side of Everest into Tibet and found their
way up what would be called the Hornbeye cool War
and Willie Unsold and Tom Hornbyne established their high camp
at twenty seven thousand feet on a ledge that was
(28:50):
only eighteen inches wide, and Barry Corbett and Dick Emerson
and the Sherpes descended, leaving those two gentlemen along. The
next morning, Willie unsolding Tom Hornbine found their way, after
great difficulty in problems with their supplemental oxygen, up to
(29:14):
the crest of the West Ridge, and there they looked
across at the south summit of Everest and at the
fifth highest peak, loads which was now below them in elevation,
and they were able to find a route up to
the summit of Everest, and on May twenty second they
planted their flag on the top. It was nearly six
(29:38):
pm and they turned and realized they would have to
find their way down the Southeast Ridge, down a route
they had never seen, with darkness fast approaching. But they
saw something in the foreground that gave them a little
bit of hope. There were footprints in the snow and
(30:00):
in that wind swept environment, any footprints would be covered
over very quickly. So they realized that Lutjerstad from Oregon
and Barry Bishop of the National Geographic Society must have
come up to the summit sometime before them, and in fact,
Lute and Barry had time their ascent in order to
be able to try to intersect with Willie Unsold and
(30:22):
Tom Hornbein, but they were three hours ahead of them
and had already descended. And so as Tom and Willie
descended down the southeast Ridge into darkness, they could no
longer find their way, and randomly, hopelessly, might say, Willie
(30:52):
Unsold started yodeling into the darkness, as he was he
was apt to do, and amazing shouts and yodels came
back in return, because Barry Bishop and Lutjerstad had also
been benighted on the southeast Ridge at about twenty seven
and a half thousand feet just below them, and so
(31:16):
using yodel echolocation, Willie was able to guide himself and
Tom down to where Loot and Barry were huddled on
the southeast ridge, and the four of them converged and
sat down to die. As Lute Jerstad later wrote, we
(31:48):
saw each other but could not see. We felt each other,
but did not feel. We knew each other was safe,
but we knew nothing. Man vanished into nothingness, but in
that nothingness lay the strength and dignity which man's soul
is capable of. And as they stared into the darkness,
(32:13):
they weren't aware of the American that was only a
hundred miles away. A Jesuit priest in Kopmandu who was
the headmaster of a private school there and also a
well known Ham radio operator. He had been listening to
the radio dispatches from base camp, and when he'd learned
that these four gentlemen were stranded on one of the
(32:37):
highest bivouacs in history, on the side of Mount Everest,
he gathered together the priests of the school, and they
spent the night kneeling in prayer, praying that the winds
on Everest would be calm, and miraculously, the winds on
(32:57):
Everest were calm. They all lived and were safe from
base camp. Barry, Bishop and Willie Unsold had to be
carried to a waiting helicopter at a village at twelve
(33:19):
thousand feet down valley, and as they stuffed Barry Bishop
and Willie Unsold into the helicopter. The rest of the
team gathered for a final team portrait, the last portrait
taken of the team when they were all together, all
of them except Jake Brighton back, who was left on
(33:42):
the mountain. The team walked the eighteen days back to Kopmandu.
They had lost an aggregate of five hundred pounds of
body weight in the expedition, and when they neared the
(34:03):
edge of the Comandu Valley, they were greeted by the
US ambassador and his wife and ministers from the Nepal government,
who were thrilled that these Americans had reached the summit.
And when they returned to the US, they were honored
in the Rose Garden of the White House by President
(34:23):
John F. Kennedy, who awarded them all the National Geographic
Hubbard Medal, which is normally given only to individuals, but
in this case to all the members of the expedition,
including five Sherpas who had also been brought to the US.
(34:46):
Since nineteen sixty three, the process of climbing Mount Evers
has been completely transformed. More than four thousand people have
reached the summit as if two twenty one in six
thousand individual ascents or climbs, and it's become commercialized and
helicopter assisted business oriented enterprise. Really. Doctor David Schlim, who
(35:12):
started a clinic near the base of Mount Everest, pointed
out that nowadays it's as if those going to Everest
don't really want to climb it, they want to have
climbed it. The mountain has even become the venue for
what one climber calls splat sports, parachuting, hand gliding, wingsuit diving,
(35:34):
extreme skiing, snowboarding, and so on. So what did all
this mean? What did Evers mean really? For the Americans?
The mountain became the venue where American climbers were called
upon to exhibit some of our basic human values diligence, persistence, teamwork,
(35:58):
and also compromise. But there was something more individual at
stake also for these climbers, and that was friendship, a
shared communion on the mountain, the brotherhood of the rope.
And specifically it meant a lot for America, as encapsulated
by President John F. Kennedy, who was inspired to initiate
(36:23):
a physical fitness craze that took over America that included
fifty mile hikes and so it appears that the meaning
of the expedition has radiated outward in unexpected ways. One
climber said that the best journeys answer questions you didn't
(36:46):
even think to ask. But maybe it comes down to spirit.
That was really what united the members of the sixty
three expedition a half century ago. This spirit, incarnated in
a handful of tough men, coincided with the aspirations of
a still young nation. From competing objectives and differing opinions,
(37:12):
they forged compromises while suspending personal desires for the sake
of common goals. With supreme effort, fortified by dreams and
bonded by cooperation, America and its mountaineers climbed to the
hilltop that President Kennedy spoke of, and there, for at
(37:36):
least a moment, they found greatness and a terrific job
on the editing and storytelling by Monty Montgomery and his
special thanks. It brought Coburn, whose book The Best Unknown
is available at Local Bookstories, at Amazon or wherever you
buy your books, a terrific story about so many things,
(37:59):
included the American spirit. The first group of Americans to
scale Mount Everest here on our American story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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