K2_ Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain - Ed Viesturs [48]
Granted, technical skill on steep rock and ice has risen dramatically since 1938. But those early climbers were tough in ways that we moderns aren’t. I’ve never made a continuous overland journey by foot of anything like 360 miles. My personal record is just shy of 150 miles of cross-country skiing on Baffin Island with John Stetson in 2007. True, we were each man-hauling 220-pound sleds. On that trip, though, the crosscountry journey was the expedition. That’s quite different from having to travel 360 miles just to get started, as the team did in 1938.
What’s maybe even more impressive is that the ‘38 climbers seemed to treat the overland trek not as an unavoidable chore but, rather, as a voyage full of both tribulations and delights in its own right. In just getting to the mountain, they had a rich adventure before the real adventure even began. In Five Miles High, Bates devotes four chapters to the trek from Srinagar to base camp, and they contain some of the most lyrical passages in the book.
At Srinagar, Houston’s team met the six Sherpa they had hired out of Darjeeling. As all-purpose high-altitude porters, the canny Sherpa had been vital to all the Everest expeditions since 1921. This was, however, the first time they were used on K2. These six had come personally recommended by the British Himalayan veteran H. W. Tilman. The most accomplished of them was Pasang Kikuli. Among his previous expeditions was Nanda Devi in 1936, when he and Houston had formed a close bond. Pasang was, in fact, the team member with by far the greatest Himalayan experience: besides Nanda Devi, he had been on four expeditions to Kangchenjunga and one to Everest.
It seems like a quaint practice today, but in the 1930s it was normal for each “sahib” to be assigned his personal Sherpa. Houston’s was Pasang Kikuli, who was also the Sherpa sirdar, or head man. The whole relationship between Sherpa and Westerner was modeled on Victorian colonialism, particularly that of the British. Even though they often performed heroically on expeditions, the Sherpa were infallibly regarded as servants. Bates was not being particularly racist when he wrote, “Though slight of build, they are strong, willing, and above all filled with enthusiasm for mountaineering. To them an attempt on a high mountain is a pilgrimage and the white climber almost a holy man.” Bates was simply reflecting the attitude of the day.
Unfortunately, that condescension persists even in the twenty-first century. At best, Sherpa are described as simple people, childlike, superstitious, and perpetually grinning. But if something goes wrong on an expedition, the Sherpa usually get the brunt of the blame. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read articles about Himalayan ascents in which the Europeans who reached the summit are all named, and then a phrase such as “and three Sherpas” gets tacked onto the end of the sentence. Sometimes even when Sherpa die on an expedition, they go unnamed in the official accounts.
To get from Srinagar to Skardu, the team hired porters, who carried the expedition’s goods on their backs and on the backs of their ponies. In the nomenclature of the day, these hired hands were usually called “coolies.” An even greater condescension colors expedition accounts of the porters’ contributions to the march. Bates could never have imagined just how politically incorrect the following passage would sound in 2009—he simply thought he was painting an amusing scene:
Often the natives would give each of us bouquets of flowers and then beg for the honor of being allowed to help our Sherpas smooth the ground and put up our tents. Then came the real struggle. Several coolies would plead for the privilege of being allowed to blow up the sahib’s air mattress, and if his Sherpa permitted it, the