1960–61 Silver Hut expedition

The expedition was also short on funds; Hillary wrote to Pugh in 1959 "I’m damn certain that we’d get someone on the top (of Everest) without oxygen but we’d need a lot of cash".

Hillary estimated the expedition cost at $US120,000 and, after meeting him in Chicago in October 1959, the World Book board gave him $US125,000 and a "practically free hand".

[4] New Zealand mountaineer Norman Hardie led a party of 310 Nepali porters with parts of the hut, the laboratory equipment, and winter supplies.

The setting was spectacular, between the "vertiginous walls" of Ama Dablam and behind them the cirque of steep ice and rock of the Mingbo La.

A kerosene stove separated the living-space, with eight bunks and a dining table, from the laboratory, with a bicycle ergometer and equipment benches.

With him were mountaineers Bishop, Gill, Lahiri, Milledge, Ward and West, and Sherpas Siku, Dawa Tensing and Mingma Norbu.

An important finding was that during exercise saturation dropped further, sometimes below fifty percent, despite a huge increase in the breathing rate; this explains why climbing upwards at high altitude is extraordinarily exhausting even if feeling comfortable at rest.

At the end of October they left for the Khumbu region via the Tashi Laptsas Pass and borrowed a 200-year old Yeti scalp from the Jhumjung Monastery.

Through Desmond Doig, who knew the new Prime Minister Dr. Tulsi Giri, Hillary got permission to continue as a "special case" after writing a letter of apology.

and had a desperate five-day struggle back to camp 5 on the Col where Ward also suffered cerebral edema; Mulgrew had to be carried part-way by a Sherpa (Urkien).

Gill says that while pulmonary infarcts are rare, the French team in 1954 was fitter and used oxygen day and night from Camp 4 (23,000 feet (7,000 m)); and also that the mountain was very windy: Jean Franco wrote that Makalu Col was "the kingdom of the wind".

Several doctors, most with expertise in respiratory physiology and also mountaineering: John West, Jim Milledge (UK), Sukhamay Lahiri (India), Tom Nevison (US, USAF) and Michael Gill (NZ, medical student).

Himalayan Adventure Intl Treks can organize Ama Dablam Expedition and Journalist Desmond Doig from the "Calcutta Statesman" who spoke Nepali (having fought with the Gurkhas).

Pugh showed that Mount Everest could be climbed without oxygen, after a period of acclimatisation; the team lived at 19,000 feet (5,800 m) for six months.

Hillary travelled to remote temples which contained "Yeti scalps"; however after bringing back three relics, two were shown to be from bears and one from a goat antelope.

[24] All the Yeti relics were from Tibetan blue bears, red pandas or goats, and Hillary said that another yeti-hunt would be a "sheer waste of money" But with the permission to remove for examination a "Yeti scalp" in the Khumjung Monastery in the Khumbu region he was asked to build a school in Khumjung; this led to a new project for Hillary; schools and healthcare for Sherpas through the Himalayan Trust.

In January 1962 the family left for Chicago where Hillary flew every week to speak to "World Bookers" the company’s sales staff throughout America.