UKC

I have just read Sir Edmund Hillary's book about the first ascent of Everest. Wow.

I know this questin must have been well-explored before but indulge me please ... I do wonder about the contrast between the days when it was impossible, then possible but only with superhuman efforts ... and now when thousands of people do it (albeit many of them with a lot of help) and the truly superhuman can scamper up without oxygen.

There is modern gear. There are fixed ropes. There is the huge knowledge and experience of the Sherpas who get so many people up there. But even all that put together seems inadequate to explain the difference between what was possible for a very few in the 1950s and what is regularly achieved now. 

Just musing ...

Well yes and no... If you haven't read it I suggest you read Whymper's Scrambles Amongst the Alps 1860 - 1869. You'll be blown away by some of the things he managed then that wouldn't even be contemplated now.

But even all that put together seems inadequate to explain the difference between what was possible for a very few in the 1950s and what is regularly achieved now. 

The first E5 wasn't achieved until (I think) 1974. Now it's done by what would be considered, by many, just run of the mill climbers. Things change quickly...

I remember reading somewhere that Whympers minimum requirements for alpine companions included being able to walk about 40 miles a day.

40 miles in *a* day is easy enough if you're reasonably fit & used to spending time in the hills. 

Doing it again the next day is an altogether different question, as I discovered trying to make it from the YHA to the railway station the morning after Stoodley Pike to Edale.

Yeah.  I can do 40 miles in a day without too much trouble.  Can't do 40 miles a day for a week!

Maybe that would change after a couple of weeks of trying though.

Hillary and his mates were far tougher and had more endurance than 90% of the foreigners on Everest today. Most Everest clients would collapse on the *approach* to the south ridge of Aoraki-Mt Cook, let alone the climb, that Ed did in 1948. Last November I went up past Gokyo to get a first-hand look at where Hillary and Lowe went over the Nup La in 1952 on their illegal recce of Everest north side. I balked at even attempting the start of it, let alone going over the La and hiking all the way back down east toward Rongbuk. They did this in short time, with big loads. Then returned.

The gear makes a huge difference. Their old O2 sets were much heavier and much less efficient. They were carrying 8kg or more to get barely 2 litres a minute, whereas sets now are a fraction of that and most clients are on 4 litres a minute. They had heavy leather boots that froze, windy canvas tents and weak stoves. The foreigners did the routefinding and rope fixing, with no aluminum ladders or decent ropes and anchors, and carried some of this gear themselves - unlike today. All that work, with that gear, at altitude - it's amazing they made it at all. Their endurance was used up just surviving and doing the expedition work, rather than racing up all unburdened, timed on their Suunto between set camps.

They were just tougher back then. Home life was tougher so expedition life wasn't such a shock. Hillary, Lowe, Riddiford, Cotter and those NZ blokes were used to massive walk-ins up shifting moraines carrying huge packs, making their own way up dangerous icefalls, then doing a big climb on top of that, then walking back home. Most commercial expedition guides who have been in the game since the 80s or 90s will tell you that clients have just got softer and less competent with every passing year.

Even a run-of-the-mill climber who is achieving E5 is probably training throughout the year at an indoor wall.  Back in 1974 most climbers simply weren't getting in sufficient mileage to achieve this standard.

Don't underestimate the psychological element.  Knowing something is possible makes a huge difference.  Everest was both a huge physical and mental challenge.  Modern gear and multiple ascents have gone a long way to taming both.  Same with the 4-minute mile - the time (despite being a wholly artificial boundary) was a psychological barrier more than a physical one, and once Roger Bannister (in crap shoes on a cinder track) had shown it was possible others began to achieve it too.

The kit available in 1974 made a big difference to performance, E5 didn't really exist then and there has been grade creep as well from when it did. I wouldn't be surprised if more than 90% of modern climbers who have onsighted E5 wouldn't be able to repeat any with the gear and grades of the time*. One of the repeating themes here on UKC is that E5 was a trade ascent for top climbers in the late 1990s and arguably there were more people onsighting mid extremes then than now.

*As an example these are all the routes given E5 in  '83 Stanage Millstone:

Second's Out; White Wand; Hathersage Trip; Defying Destiny; Arme Blanche; Simpering Savage; Nosferatu; Bat out of Hell; Pulsar; London Wall; White Wall; Who Wants the World; Edge Lane; Great Arete; Sex Dwarfs; The Snivelling; 

Scritto's Republic was the lone E6.

I can believe it! It's in a context of everyone walking everywhere. I can remember my grandad telling me about walking six or seven miles a day just to get to work and back. 

Then there's all those Victorian romantic poets walking who knows how many miles a day. Thomas de Quincy reckoned Wordsworth must have walked about 175,000-200,000 miles in his lifetime. 

And for real lunacy check out Edward Payson Weston... http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2010/03/21/the-worlds-greatest-walker-u... 

Some hard people around then.

Only partially off topic, but in 1978, there was bad snow in Sheffield, and all buses were cancelled. I walked 7 miles across Sheffield to work. It was expected of everyone. I don’t recall anyone taking time if work. Bear in mind that the majority of people worked in the same city they lived in.

All the kids walked to school, as they did anyway.

there was never a question if school closures, or taking time off work.

I think this does relate to the original post.

I can just about remember the winter of 1963, largely due to memories of an extended Christmas holiday due to the snow. We could walk to school (about 10 minute for me, aged  5) but it took a while for the school to be dug out of the snow drift which had covered it (small school with only two classrooms).  Can't remember any other time when we had days off due to bad weather.

They had to, because Whymper would walk between one part of The Alps and another at incredible speeds.

I just finished reading a book about everest (inflicted gift left over from christmas) and guy whose "dream" was to climb it. I had no idea about the fixed aluminium ladders and jumaring up a fixed line on o2. I cant believe how people are so determined to climb the mountain but have absolutely zero interest in mountaineering.  

As needs must. Look at the illegal immigration, some of their journeys would be extremely hard and require a lot of physical and mental strength.