Everest - The First Ascent: How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain

Winner of the Banff Mountain Book Competition and the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature

Harriet Tuckey’s book is both the history of what went into the first successful ascent of Mt. Everest in 1953 and a biography of her father, Dr Griffith Pugh, whose role was absolutely pivotal, yet mostly untold. As the expedition’s physiological consultant, Pugh designed almost every aspect of the survival strategy for the expedition, the acclimatization program, the oxygen- and fluid-intake regime, the diet, the clothing and the high altitude boots. Without him and his work, the ascent of Everest would have been impossible.