Chapter 6 Chapter 3 Departure

There are two different people between Malory, who was actually heading for Mount Everest, and Malory, who was a little passive when he received the invitation.The great joy of the cart fight obviously rose.Friends are wishing him good luck and want to walk with him.The life and excitement of the great action began to stir.Then someone whispered that a possibility was just a possibility: Maybe, he would have conquered Everest that summer.Who knows?Maybe it was easier to climb than originally thought.All the visible parts look easy.If the face below the visible part was equally easy to climb, then, of course, he could reach the summit in that season.The instructions given by the Commission do not preclude such attempts.Exploration is the primary goal of this year's expedition. The climbers on this trip don't have to try to take the most dangerous way to reach the top of the mountain, but to find a better way.But if they find a perfectly feasible path to the summit, they are certainly not prevented from walking around.

This is one of the many vague aims that the expedition members, leaders, and those who arrange for the formation of the expedition, prepare themselves in every respect, minimizing all dangers, difficulties, and material obstacles.Humans always want more than what they actually do, but they also like accomplishments more than promises.Therefore, they kept this hope as a secret in their hearts, and did not disclose it to the world for ridicule. It's a long way from London to Mount Everest, four thousand miles in terms of the flight path of a crow.But Everest climbers are not crows, or even pilots.They had to travel through France, down the Mediterranean, down the Red Sea, sail through the Indian Ocean, then cross India from Bombay to Calcutta, and finally reach the point where the Darjeeling expedition assembled.

Rayburn had arrived in Darjeeling ahead of Malory to gather porters; Howard.Belly, Bullock, and Wollaston got there by different routes. The expedition must recruit porters as auxiliary manpower.The employment of porters is a very special thing in expeditions.General Bruce had written a list of recommendations earlier.From here, Himalayan expeditions continued to rely on these alpine dwellers to carry supplies and equipment.Usually this kind of people are drawn randomly from random people encountered in the village, sometimes it is suitable, sometimes it is not.Shorter distances are fine, but large-scale expeditions like climbing Everest are less feasible.Furthermore, climbers may have to rely on Tibetan alpine villagers during the trip, and it is impossible to induce Tibetan alpine villagers to participate in such extremely difficult and dangerous activities as climbing Mount Everest, even if there are only a few of them.

Therefore, General Bruce had an idea: arrange the employment of porters in advance to find suitable and willing people from the area around Darjeeling, and then select about forty of the best to form a special task team.They will be imbued with the concept of esprit de corps; they will be highly interested in the spirit of adventure, fame and the desire to become famous in one fell swoop.Moreover, they were to be well paid, well fed, well equipped, and well managed, so that their natural childish inclinations would not jeopardize the success of the expedition. In this part of the Himalayas there are plenty of hardy, lively men; they don't take risks, but they're willing to take risks if they're led.There are many such people among the Sherpas living in eastern Nepal, as well as Bhutanese from around Darjeeling, and Tibetans who have settled in Sikkim.It is from these peoples that it is possible to raise the most efficient team, and these are the ones who are accustomed from a very young age to carry their burdens to very high altitudes, some as high as eighteen or nineteen thousand feet.

Note ① Sherpa: A mountainous ethnic group living in Sikkim, India and Nepal.They immigrated from eastern Tibet to Nepal more than a thousand years ago. The Tibetan word Sherpa means a nation from the east.The Sherpa people believe in Tibetan Buddhism, and they speak the Sherpa language, which is 80% intelligible with the Tibetan language, and their customs and habits are similar to those of the Tibetans.They are good at mountain trade and shipping, have super strong foot strength and endurance, and have been awarded the title of creeper.The population is about 80,000.Editor's note At the beginning of May (1921), here in Darjeeling, porters, climbers, food and various equipment have gradually gathered, and local food such as tea, sugar, flour and potatoes have been bought.Lord Ronaldshay, who was the governor of Bengal at the time, entertained the climbers and gave various assistance to the expedition.

The natural beauty of Darjeeling is truly unparalleled.Travelers come from all over the world to enjoy the view of the famous Kanchenjunga, which rises 28,150 feet (8,586 meters) and is only 40 miles away.Darjeeling itself sits at an altitude of 7,000 feet and is surrounded by forests of oaks, magnolias, rhododendrons, laurel and sweetgum.Through these trees, one can see the steep mountain walls drop down to the Rangeet River, which is only a thousand feet above sea level, and then there are layers of densely forested mountains, which are bathed in purple mist. Layer after layer of purple, reaching the snow line.Further up is the peak of Kanchenjunga.It is so pure and ethereal that it is hard to believe that it is part of the earth upon which we stand; its height makes it seem like the sky itself.

These Everest climbers, however, were inspired by something higher than that.Kanchenjunga is just the third peak, and they don't take it seriously.Only the tallest counts, this is a sentence they keep in mind. By mid-May, Howard.Belly has already assembled the whole team and prepared all the equipment and rations.Dr Kailas also made a detour from his winter trip in Sikkim, but in bad condition.In early spring, he spent several nights sleeping on the extremely cold slopes of Mount Kabru.And he is not the kind of person who can take care of himself. In the mountains of Sikkim, he actually lives only on local produce. The countryside does not produce very healthy and nutritious food.So, when he arrived in Darjeeling, he was in poor health and there was no time for him to recover as the expedition was about to start.Two officers, Mosshead and Wheeler, who were conducting surveys on behalf of the Indian government, also arrived.Both of them are strong and hard-working people who are used to climbing the lower peaks in the Himalayas. Wheeler has also climbed mountains in Canada and has a lot of research on the Canadian photogrammetry system. item of expertise.Dr AM Heron of the Geographical Survey of India also joined the expedition.These men formed the expedition with members from the UK.

However, the expedition team cannot go directly to Mount Everest from Darjeeling, but must take a long detour.If you go directly, you should go west through Nepal, but the expedition must go east through Tibet, because Nepal is a forbidden area. Therefore, Howard.Beli and his men headed for the Tista Valley in Sikkim. After leaving the valley, they would climb Jelap La (La means mountain pass) and follow the main trade route to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. The road is a long way. It is not a big road for scooter, but a rugged mountain path for donkeys.They will initially travel through wonderful forests and then have to trek for two hundred miles across the dry plateau of Tibet.But going this way will pay off, and you will finally reach the halfway up Mount Everest, because the Tibetan Plateau is about 15,000 feet high.Also, walking on that height for a few weeks will help to condition yourself to go higher.

They set out from Darjeeling on 18th May.The night before departure, the rain started pouring down on Darjeeling as it rains many days of the year: what must such a majestic view of Kanchenjunga have to cost.Soon after the expedition set off, the rain stopped, but the mountain was still surrounded by gray mist, and the moss-covered branches dripped water all day long.It's uncomfortable, but the tick-tock forest has its beauty.The new shoots are so fresh and tender, so bright green!Ferns and orchids, hanging mosses, and twining vines provide a constant visual delight. Along the way are rows of low-growing tea trees; useful perhaps, but not as beautiful as the surrounding forest.Now, as the path began to descend from the ridge, the air was getting hotter and sweating from man and beast; Dazzling are the huge and gorgeous colorful butterflies.

By the time they reached the Tisha River, the expedition was in fact already in a tropical climate, for the river was only 700 feet above sea level and at a latitude of only 26 degrees.The heat was high, and the forest was full of tropical vegetation in this humid, almost windless, narrow valley.The beauty of this valley is that it reaches up to the glaciers above Kanchenjunga, so it has everything from tropical to polar flora and fauna. At Kalimpong, about 3,000 feet above the Tisak River, the expedition was entertained by the famous Dr. Graham and visited a beautiful garden full of roses, red hibiscus, and a verandah for climbing. Columnar large-flowered Solanum lilac.

In Pedong, Howard.Belly noticed some huge trees of red hibiscus, datura and bougainvillea.He saw a wonderful hedge of datura flowers, fifteen to twenty feet high, bearing hundreds of white petunias, about eight inches in diameter and a foot long.At night, these huge white flowers bloom with light, which seems to be radiant, and emit a strange fragrance.There are also Dendrobium, Fritillaria, and various orchids, in lavender, white, or yellow, some with flowers as long as eighteen inches. The flowers and butterflies here are amazing, but the weather is daunting.The rain was pouring down, any waterproofing was useless, and everyone was drenched.The incessant rain brings forth thousands of leeches; they perch on leaves and branches, waiting to attach themselves to people or animals. In Rongli, where they camped on May 22, colorful taro and begonias grew on the rocks everywhere.The branches of many of the trees were adorned with the large gleaming leaves of giant limes.Other climbing vines, such as creeper and pepper, drag and climb from tree to tree.The branches are often covered with thick orchid grass, and the tree itself is often a hundred and fifty feet high, and some trunks are straight, and there are no branches a hundred feet from the ground. But from Longli, they climbed steeply out of the tropical jungle and into the climate zone where rhododendrons bloom.On the way up, they first encountered two species of rhododendrons (R. argenteum and R. falconeri), which grew in a huge forest of oaks and magnolia trees, which in turn were covered with ferns. Ferns and orchids with lavender or white flowers.Further up, there is a large field of cinnabarinum (R. cinnabarinum), whose flowers have various shades from red to orange.Continuing to go up, there are colorful rhododendron bushes, pink, deep red, yellow, lavender, white, milky white, colorful. Among these clusters of smaller blooms, a large pink saxifrage and a primrose with deep purple flowers cover every inch of open space.Others have small pink flowers, and another is like a large pink primrose. Note ② Primrose (primrose), also known as primrose, is usually yellow.Annotation For flower lovers such as Howard.For Billy, Malory, and Wollaston, this blossoming scene was a constant joy.This lush and beautiful landscape was the last feast for their eyes before they faced the harsh, barren rock and snow reality of Everest.