Enormous crowds of people thronged the sidewalks of London on June 2, 1953, as they waited for the coronation procession of Queen Elizabeth II. Many had stood in the rain overnight to secure the best vantage points. Then, at a few minutes before 8 a.m.—hours before anyone would catch their first glimpse of the new monarch—thrilling news electrified the multitude: British mountaineers had become the first to climb the 29,029-foot Mount Everest. People “cheered and danced,” Scott Ellsworth tells us in “The World Beneath Their Feet.” The triumphant finale to a 30-year quest to summit the world’s tallest mountain delivered “a glorious, unforgettable moment,” a “crowning touch” to the young queen’s ascension.
The feat accomplished by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary brings to a climax Mr. Ellsworth’s fast-paced survey of Himalayan mountaineering history from the end of the Great War to the early 1950s. Mr. Ellsworth argues that two tensions added to the man-against-nature drama of early high-altitude mountaineering. The first was between nations—predominantly the Teutonic alliance of Germany and Austria, on one hand, and Great Britain, on the other. The second tension was between climbing “styles,” contrasting the massive national undertakings organized along military lines—with their hierarchies and designated leaders—against the lightweight expeditions launched by small groups of friends operating as equals. The former achieved Himalayan mountaineering’s first successes on the giant peaks. The latter were much more fun.
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