BARRY BISHOP RETURNED from a his-
toric Mount Everest expedition with
his reindeer-hide boots, Vibram-soled
hiking boots (below), knee-high over-
boots with crampons—and no toes.
A polar researcher turned National
Geographic photographer, Bishop was
on the first U.S. expedition to summit
Everest. At 3:30 p.m. on May 22, 1963, he
and his climbing partner reached the
top, dropped to the ground, and wept.
On the descent they couldn’t find their
camp. Bishop stamped his feet to warm
them but soon felt sharp pain, then
numbness. “Knowing it is hopeless,
I abandon the effort,” he later wrote.
After Bishop spent a night without
shelter, his toes turned “dead white,
hard, and icy to the touch.” Crippled
by frostbite, he was carried partway
down the mountain by Nepalese Sher-
pas and evacuated by helicopter to a
hospital in Kathmandu. An American
doctor flew in to administer an exper-
imental drug to revive the damaged
tissue in his feet, but it failed.
Along with all of his toes, Bishop lost
the tips of two fingers. Still, he continued
to climb—and his son, Brent, conquered
Everest in 1994, making it a father-and-
son feat. “There are no true victors,”
Barry Bishop wrote of the mountain.
“Only survivors.” —NINA STROCHLIC
A FROSTBITTEN
EVEREST DESCENT
PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA HALE
THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL U.S. EFFORT TO
REACH THE SUMMIT OF EVEREST TOOK A
TOLL ON THE OWNER OF THESE BOOTS.
Barry Bishop made it to
the top of Everest but was
crippled by frostbite on the
descent. He wore these hiking
boots—each weighing nearly
four pounds—as Sherpas
carried him partway down.
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