Edmund Hillary (1919–2008)

Hillary, fresh from climbing Everest, led the New Zealand contingent of the Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition in the late 1950s, establishing supply bases between the South Pole and McMurdo Sound to support the second half of Vivian Fuchs’s crossing of the continent in the summer of 1957-58. In the process, Hillary himself traveled overland to the pole, arriving a couple of weeks before Fuchs got there from the opposite direction.

This book is his personal account of his involvement in the show more expedition, with a lot about the politics and logistics of getting an operation like that set up, and making sure that you have enough food, fuel and spare parts to keep going, but also some quite scary accounts of the day-to-day experience of finding a way across the Antarctic snowfields with their rather motley caravan of converted Ferguson agricultural tractors. A very Kiwi way to travel, but it doesn’t sound like fun! The expedition benefited from radio communications and air support, but neither was particularly straightforward, with planes operating at the limits of their range and often having to land on unpredictable snow runways. Even when the US Navy brought out its superior equipment to help them (as it did on a surprising number of occasions — Hillary often seems to have had smoother relations with the US admiral in charge than with his committee back in New Zealand), it was never easy.

Definitely a book of its time, playing up the “real men doing macho stuff in the snow” aspect and trying not to bore us with too much about their real scientific work, but quite fun to read all the same. show less

Each time I pick this book up and read it again (it's 70 years old!) it gets better and better. How did those guys do it? Look at the photos, see what they are wearing on Everest, they even had to make most of their own climbing gear themselves or use second hand army surplus to get the gear they needed. No climbing shops in those days, climbers were regarded as nut-cases.

Edmund Hillary's "High Adventure: The True Story of the First Ascent of Everest" is a bit like a Primus stove at high altitude. It's slow to get going and sputters along for a bit but once it really gets cooking everything is good.

Hillary writes very simply but effectively of various climbs in the Himalayas, including the first ascent of Everest by himself and Tenzing Norgay. The Everest ascent itself is pretty riveting... the other climbs aren't quite as interesting, but why would they be?

Mildly interesting. The idea of the expedition is neat, but I'm not sufficiently interested in either the details of the rapids on the Ganga (Ganges) or the equally specific details of making camp and climbing high mountains. Each major rapid was discussed, and many mapped, telling the reader how the water flowed and exactly what path each of the three boats took to get through them; and later, there's much discussion of how much weight each person carried and what medicines they were taking show more in order to be able to sleep. There's also a lot about the crowds gathered at each refueling stop and overnight camp, and how they crowded in asking for autographs, or (journalists) asking questions, mostly the same questions over and over. Hillary was appreciative at first, but later in the trip becomes somewhat desperate to get away from them. After the trip - in the conclusion, and the foreword written for this book - he says he remembers with pleasure the great warmth of the people of India - but in the parts drawn from diaries written during the trip, he's not so happy. For good reason, both. There's one afterword about the Hindu religion, by Jim Wilson, one of the expedition; and another, about jet boats and jet boating, by another expedition member, Jon Hamilton. Again, both would probably be interesting to someone interested in the subject. I found the one about Hinduism mildly interesting and the jet boat one mostly uninteresting; someone who greatly enjoyed the book would probably reverse that. Not sorry I read it, but I see no reason ever to reread. show less