Wilfrid Noyce

Noyce was a climbing member of the 1953 British Expedition to Mount Everest that made the first ascent of the mountain. According to the expedition's leader John Hunt, in the section of his The Ascent of Everest in which he outlined the qualities of his team members:

Wilfred Noyce is a schoolmaster and author, built on the same model as Lowe. Aged 34, he was, at the outbreak of the war in 1939, one of our foremost young mountaineers, with a very fine record of difficult routes in the Alps and on our own crags to his credit [...] He had climbed in Garhwal, and had made the ascent of one high peak in Sikkim, Paunhiri, 23,000 feet.

— [14]

Edmund Hillary, meeting Noyce for the first time as the expedition assembled in Nepal, echoed Hunt's praise: "Wilf Noyce was a tough and experienced mountaineer with an impressive record of difficult and dangerous climbs. In many respects I considered Noyce the most competent British climber I had met."[15]

At the initial meeting of the Everest team at the premises of the Royal Geographical Society on 17 November 1952, Noyce was designated as being charge of writing (meaning the dispatches that were to be sent home from the mountain) and "volunteered to help with the packing" (he aided Stuart Bain with this).[16] On the walk-in to the mountain, Noyce, together with Charles Evans, who had been designated as in charge of stores at the RGS meeting, were designated as the "baggage party", in charge of the clothing and equipment for the approach.[17] Noyce was also in charge of mountaineering equipment on the ascent itself, having been instructed in the repair of high-altitude boots ("I had worked for three days with Robert Lawrie's bootmakers, learning chiefly how to stick on micro-cellular rubber soles and heels").[18] Noyce's skills in boot repair were in demand on the ascent; according to Charles Wylie, the thin Vibram soles that were used on the boots often peeled off at the toes but Noyce "saved the situation with some really professional repair work".[19]

Together with George Lowe, on 17 May Noyce established Camp VII on the Lhotse face of Everest. On 20 May he radioed to Hunt that many of the oxygen bottles (the training or Utility model, not the type that were to be used on the summit attempt) that had been ferried up to Camp VII were leaking. Hunt noted "Wilfrid, though gifted in more ways than one, has not a marked mechanical bent and we hoped his tests were not conclusive. Tom, however, had a lurking fear that these very tests, carried out by a possibly anoxic Wilfrid, might have resulted in the discharging of all nine cylinders".[20]

Mount Everest. The South Col is the lowest point of the sunny ridge in the right background

On 21 May Noyce and the Sherpa Annullu (the younger brother of Da Tensing) were the first members of the expedition to reach Everest's South Col, after what Noyce said was "one of the most enjoyable days' mountaineering I've ever had".[21] They left Camp VII at 9.30 am, both using oxygen; according to Noyce, "I had told Anullu that we would not start too early, for fear of frostbite."[22] Several hours later they reached the highest point attained by the British expedition to date: "an aluminium piton with a great coil of thick rope" left by George Lowe and party.[23] The climbers in the camps below, according to Hunt, were watching their progress on this vital part of the climb; by early afternoon "their speed had noticeably increased and our excitement soon grew to amazement when it dawned on us that Noyce and Annullu were heading for the South Col itself".[24]

Not long after Hunt made that observation, they reached the Col.

It was 2.40 p.m. Wilfrid Noyce and his companion Annullu stood at that moment above the South Col of Everest, at about 26,000 feet. They were gazing down on the scene of the Swiss drama, and they were also looking upwards to the final pyramid of Everest itself. It was a great moment for them both, and it was shared by all of us who watched it. Their presence there was symbolic of our success in overcoming the most crucial problem of the whole climb; they had reached an objective which we had been striving to attain for twelve anxious days.

— [21]

In a passage in South Col, Noyce's book of the expedition published the following year, he gives an account of the scene that greeted him at the Col:

We were on a summit, overlooked in this whole scene only by Lhotse and Everest. And this was the scene long dreamed, long hoped for. To the right and above, the crenellations of Lhotse cut a blue sky fringed with snow cloudlets. To the left, snow mist still held Everest mysteriously. But the eye wandered hungry and fascinated over the plateau between; a space of boulders and bare ice perhaps four hundred yards square, absurdly solid and comforting at first glance in contrast with the sweeping ridges around, or the blank mist that masked the Tibetan hills beyond. But across it a noisy little wind moaned its warning that the South Col, goal of so many days' ambition, was not comfortable at all. And in among the glinting ice and dirty grey boulders there lay some yellow tatters – all that remained of the Swiss expedition of last year.

— [25]

From the remains of the Swiss expedition Noyce "picked up some Vita-Weat, a tin of sardines and a box of matches, all in perfect condition after lying exposed to the elements for over six months".[21] Noyce and Annullu fixed a 500-ft length of nylon rope to protect the steep slopes leading up to the Col where Camp VIII was to be established ("this was to be a moral lifeline for weary Sherpas returning from the long carry"),[25] and then descended to Camp VII which they reached at 5.30 pm. From a mountaineering perspective, as Everest veteran Chris Bonington wrote, "[Noyce] had fulfilled his role in John Hunt's master plan, had established one vital stepping-stone for others to achieve the final goal."[26]

According to Hunt, the climbing team had been in low spirits before Noyce and Annullu reached the South Col, but the effect of their safe return from the Col to Camp VII "had a profound impression on the waiting men. If these two could do it, so could they [...] Morale rose suddenly, inspired by fine example".[27]

Noyce climbed up to the South Col a second time during the ascent; on 29 May, the day of the successful first ascent, he set out with three Sherpas from Camp VII, reaching the Col with one of them, Pasang Phutar, later that day; they "had each carried a double load—at least 50 lb.—from the point where the two other Sherpas had given up".[28] Hunt noted that "Noyce and Wylie were the only two members of the climbing party to reach the South Col without oxygen."[29]

Pasang, George Lowe and Noyce met the successful summit team of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay at the Col, giving the tired climbers drinks and congratulations. It was here, 200 metres above the camp, that Hillary told Lowe, who had gone out to greet them, "Well, we knocked the bastard off."[30] Hillary wrote: "Wilf Noyce and Pasang Puta [sic] were also in Camp and they looked after us with patience and kindness. I felt a moment of sympathy for Wilf – he was the only one left with the strength to try for the summit; but now he wouldn't get the chance. It was another foul night with strong wind and very cold temperatures ..."[30] Noyce descended the following day with Hillary, Tenzing, Lowe and Pasang Phutar, reaching Camp IV on 30 May.[31]

As well as naming his book of the expedition South Col, Noyce also wrote a poem called 'South Col'.