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Hornbein: Well, I guess we’ll see you in Kathmandu then.

In the end, Dyhrenfurth relented and supported the west ridge party. On May 22, Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld finished the route, traversed over the summit, survived a desperate bivouac above 28,000 feet, and accomplished a far more impressive deed than the third ascent of Everest by the same route that Hillary and Tenzing had pioneered a decade before. The stellar British climber Doug Scott later called the Unsoeld-Hornbein climb the greatest single feat in Everest history.

At base camp, Wiessner learned for the first time that Durrance, rather than staying on at Camp VI, had descended all the way to Camp II on July 14, taking Pasang Kikuli with him. After that date, on only a single day had any of the four Americans supposedly composing the support team gone higher than Camp II, at only 19,300 feet. Instead, four Sherpa were the only climbers stationed between Durrance and the trio pushing up high from Camp VIII to Camp IX. During the light two-day storm on July 15 and 16, Tse Tendrup and Pasang Kitar had waited at Camp VII. Having descended to IV with Durrance and Kikuli on July 14, Tsering and Phinsoo had then climbed back up to Camp VI to support the lead climbers.

What happened next is an integral part of the mystery. In Kauffman and Putnam’s analysis, “The Sherpas’ instructions, first from Fritz and then from Jack, were to continue to ferry supplies whenever possible, first to Camp VII and then onward to Camp VIII. They did nothing of the kind; perhaps they had not understood.”

The only source for the doings of these four Sherpa between July 15 and 23 is the discussions they had with the Americans at base camp after July 24. Most of the Sherpa spoke Hindustani but not English, so much of the dialogue had to be translated by Chandra, an Indian schoolteacher who had joined the expedition and the only man conversant in both tongues. Misunderstandings must have been rife, and afterward there would be no way of independently checking the Sherpa testimony.

Even Wiessner, who was dumbfounded by the stripping of the camps, eventually accepted the explanation that emerged from the base camp dialogue. He would write in 1956,

On July 17 [Tse] Tendrup and [Pasang] Kitar, who had waited in Camp VII for better weather, came down to [VI], instead of carrying more loads to Camp VII, as I had arranged. As reason for this change in plan Tendrup alleged that Wolfe, Pasang Lama, and I had undoubtedly perished at Camp VIII in an avalanche. P[h]insoo and Tsering, however, were not convinced by this invented story of an avalanche and stayed on in Camp VI.

Descending farther, all the way to Camp IV, the next day, Tendrup and Kitar met Durrance and Kikuli, who were coming up the mountain. Indignant at their defection, Kikuli ordered the two Sherpa to return to the high camps.

Thereupon they climbed back to Camp VI, where P[h]insoo and Tsering were still staying, and on July 19 to Camp VII. There they called up to Camp VIII, which however was beyond calling range. Since they got no answer this gave greater probability to Tendrup’s story of the avalanche; we were definitely given up. The two of them now broke up Camp VII, threw most of the stored supplies into the snow, and left the tents open. Only the sleeping-bags and air mattresses were all taken along down to Camp IV. There Tendrup convinced the other two Sherpas that his avalanche story was true, and ordered a descent.

Later on, in Base Camp, the Sherpas called Tendrup a devil, who had deceived them with the avalanche story and wanted to wreck the expedition. I myself suspect that the strong but often lazy Tendrup was tired of packing between the high camps and therefore had invented the avalanche story…. At the same time he probably thought the sahibs at Base Camp would praise him for bringing along the valuable sleeping-bags from Camps VII and VI.

This explanation, however, leaves all kinds of questions unanswered. It does not explain why Camps I through IV were also stripped. It does