Summiting Everest: How a Photograph Celebrates Teamwork at the Top of the World
George Lowe a member of the support team climbs a steep ridge to the final camp Support team members George Lowe Sherpa Ang Nyima and team photographer Alfred Gregory had been working their way up the mountain since morning preparing the way for Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay the assault team Each was carrying a load of 65 pounds 30 kilograms the heaviest loads that have ever been carried that high All morning Lowe and Gregory had cut steps into the crusted snow with ice axes so Hillary and Norgay could have easier footing when they followed later that day The support team wouldn’t have the glory of making the assault attempt but they didn’t mind In 2007 Gregory told Australian Geographic magazine It has often been asked why didn’t we the support team then go to the top the next day In those days the whole idea was to get
somebody on top It was a team effort and we did just that Edmund Hillary left and Tenzing Norgay climb toward the waiting support team at 27,300 feet 8,320 m Hillary and Norgay a New Zealand beekeeper and a Tibetan mountain guide climbed up to meet the support team at midday The pair needed to find a place to camp for the night The next morning they would try for the summit but in the meantime they needed to rest sleep and eat to gather their strength But the slope was very steep and the team could not find a place flat enough for a tent In his book The Picture of Everest Alfred Gregory or Greg as he was often called wrote For a long time the ridge ran remorselessly upwards without hope of a platform for a tent But eventually we did find a place a slightly outward-sloping ledge at a height of
27,900 feet and there at 3 o’clock in the afternoon George Lowe Ang Nyima and I turned to go down leaving Ed Hillary and Tenzing to their lonely vigil of the night of May 28th Hillary left and Norgay moments before being left alone on the mountain But Gregory does not mention something else he did before heading down the mountain He pulled a small camera from under his down suit and snapped a quick picture Hillary and Norgay on the rocky slope of Everest the Himalayas spread behind them in all their vast snowy glory It was the highest any photographer had ever taken a picture For six weeks the team had been alone in the hidden world of Everest Only they had seen the dangerous beauty of the deep-blue ice crevasses and the brilliant sun reflecting off
the smooth snow Only they had seen the Sherpas climbing ladders while carrying loads affixed to their bodies by headbands With a click of his camera’s shutter Gregory opened this hidden world for the rest of humanity to share As he wrote in the introduction to The Picture of Everest Neither I nor the pictures themselves can tell much of the struggle in the rarified air or the unbelievable fatigue that can come to a climber toiling up the last slopes of the mountain where he almost reaches the end of human endurance and lives at the physical limit of possible life but these pictures will perhaps bring you nearer to our adventure and say a little of why men climb
